


Earth's Mightiest Heroes

by BookMonsterEliz



Series: Earth's Mightiest Heroes [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV), Supernatural, The Avengers (2012), Torchwood
Genre: Gen, The crossover to end all crossovers, superwhoavengetorchlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookMonsterEliz/pseuds/BookMonsterEliz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a crazy work in which the main casts of Supernatural, Doctor Who (11, Amy/Rory), The Avengers, Torchwood, and Sherlock all suddenly find themselves as neighbors.</p><p>This was inspired by and written with the permission of the lovely Deductism. Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpXL0s4uwzY&feature=share&list=FLty0YdKF2UvXuqiDKtLMSmg</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Alright, here's Chapter 1 of the super crossover to end all crossovers!!! One Superwhoavengetorchlock coming up!  
I'm still working on the plot, and other little details.

 

**Chapter 1**

The Doctor was in the library, after breakfast when it happened. He didn’t know what had happened, but it was obvious that something had, because one minute he was standing next to the book shelf, and the next he was sprawled on the ground, and the book that had been in his hand was floating in the pool. He had almost landed in the pool. That had been a Very Close Shave. Which brought him back to the problem at hand. Something had happened to make the TARDIS lurch unpleasantly. He pulled himself to his feet and dashed for the door barely pausing to straighten his bowtie. Flying down the hallway he placed his palm along the corridor wall and worriedly asked the old girl if everything was alright. She couldn’t answer of course, but she was a bit psychic, and he was a bit psychic, so he could feel her sense of annoyance. Amy Pond made her sense of annoyance known verbally as he passed the open kitchen door.

“Doctor! What was that? We’re trying to have breakfast here; it’s a bit hard when your plate goes flying across the room!” 

“It wasn’t me!” He skidded to a stop at the console, before throwing himself into the task of checking the TARDIS’ monitor, pushing buttons and pulling levers as needed. Amy and Rory weren’t far behind him, and neither looked happy as Rory worked on pulling bits of scrambled eggs out of his hair. 

“What’s going on?” Amy demanded. 

“Well. Errrrm. Well.” The Doctor looked reluctantly from the time rotor to the couple standing expectantly at the top of the stairs, not keen on telling them that their honeymoon plans were experiencing an unexpected detour. 

“Just tell us, Doctor. It can’t be your fault, can it? You were in the library, miles away from the controls.” Rory said, his voice even and calm as he put his arm around the red head’s shoulder. 

“Well, that’s just the problem. It isn’t my fault. We’ve landed somewhere. Not quite sure where, or when, exactly, the TARDIS can’t tell,” He held up a hand to shush Amy when she took a step forward and opened her mouth, alarm clearly written on her face. “No, that’s never happened before, and it’s quite possibly not good. And the TARDIS isn’t budging. She’s fully functional, but something is locking her down, holding her in place.” 

“Well, that’s a load of bad news.” Rory was definitely not looking happy, and Amy was beginning to look towards the door, which prompted the Doctor to push and pull a few more things on the console before turning back to the couple, a triumphant grin on his face.

“On the bright side, it looks like we’re on a planet with an atmosphere like the Earth’s.” The Doctor took a moment to peer at the screen again, his smile fading away a bit. “Exactly like the Earths, actually.” 

“Well, let’s go have a look then, shall we? Maybe we’ll be able to go to the beach after all.” said Amy. 

She wasted no time in getting to the TARDIS doors, ready for their next adventure, despite her half empty stomach. She threw them open with a grin, and stuck her head out the door. When she turned to face the two men, her eyes were wide. 

“Umm, you two are going to want to see this.”

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS and immediately began sniffing his surroundings as his companions looked around them in wonder. They were in the middle of what should have been a suburban neighborhood at the edge of a city. The thing was, this was unlike any other neighborhood they’d ever seen. The TARDIS had landed in the middle of a grassy yard surrounded by a white picket fence adorned with flowering vines. In the lot to their left stood a small, dilapidated Tourist Information Centre along with the great silver monument from the Roald Dahl Plass. But that was in Cardiff, on Earth, in the Twenty First century. What was it doing here? 

“Doctor! Come look at this!” Amy called to him from the fence on the other side of the yard. The lot to their right held an apartment. The first floor had a small shop, “Speedy’s Café” and a single door, with 221B in brass above the knocker. Two men stood on the doorstep. The smaller one looked around him in wonder, while the other peered suspiciously about. They were all distracted by the sound of a slamming door and a yell from the brown cabin situated across from 221B. A young man with short brown hair and a leather jacket was standing in the yard, shouting at the sky.

“Gabriel! Get your feathery ass back here and fix this! I don’t have time for this right now, man.” His accent was definitely American. 

“Umm, are you alright, mate?” The short blonde from 221B called out. 

The American looked over, but didn’t have a chance to answer as two men appeared out of thin air in front of him. They staggered, narrowly avoided falling by grabbing each other’s shoulders, and one, a dark haired man in a tan trench coat, immediately clasped a hand to his face, covering a nosebleed. Another young man ran out of the house behind them, but whatever they had to say was drowned out by a sudden clap of thunder from the other end of the street, at the small palace situated across from the Hub. Lightning pierced the sky and connected with a large metal hammer held by a man with long blond hair wearing silver armor and a flowing red cape. Amy gasped when the lightning failed to hurt him. 

“Thor, stand down!” 

This was shouted by a large man with an eye patch and a long black coat who emerged from a tower in the yard across from the TARDIS. He was followed by several other people, dressed just as strangely as the man with the hammer. The Doctor’s attention was diverted however, when someone from the yard to his left called his name.

“Doctor! Doctor, is that you?!” 

Before he could run back to the safety of his TARDIS, Jack had jumped over the fence, and he found himself being lifted into a hug by the immortal ex-time agent as chaos and confusion broke out around them. 

  
  


\---  
Author's note:

Ok, I'm posting this here as a new member, this story (up to chapter 8!) can be found on livejournal. It's still a wip, so if you have plot suggestions, do let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
Amy patted Rory’s shoulder, hoping to calm him, as they sat in the under construction conference room in what they had been informed was “Avengers Tower”. The man with the eyepatch had quickly restored order in the street, insisting on having everyone come up to the tower to sort things out. Most of the guests sat in tense groups around the room, whispering amongst themselves, while eying the others suspiciously. Amy darted a quick glance to the man in the World War Two coat who was happily chatting away with the Doctor. He winked back.

“Amy!” Rory hissed in her ear.

Her retort was cut off when Mr. Eyepatch reentered the large room, closing the door loudly behind him.

“Alright everyone, I’m Nick Fury, head of Shield. It seems that we’ve all mysteriously appeared here and none of us seems to know how or why, so let’s all introduce ourselves. I want to know where you’re from and what you were doing when you appeared here.”

The Doctor’s friend stepped forward immediately, his team alert and on their feet behind him.

“I’m Jack Harkness, head of Torchwood. Who are you again? Because I’ve been around for a long time, and I’ve never heard of you, or Avengers Tower.”

The silence in the room was heavy as the two men stared each other down, their respective teams sizing each other up as well. After a moment a quiet voice spoke up in the corner. It was one of the young men from the wooden house at the end of the street, the tall one with shaggy brow hair.

“I’ve heard of him, and these other guys. They’re the Avengers, from a comic book.”

A low murmur went around the room, and the Black Widow looked nervously from Bruce Banner, standing barely two feet away from her, to where Hawkeye sat, perched on a high beam in the half finished corner of the room, wishing she was up there with him.

“Do I look like a comic book to you? Who are you anyways?” Nick Fury said.

“Um, I’m Sam Winchester.”

The man who had shouted in the yard stepped forward. Both Fury and Jack had to admire his nerve as he pulled out a short, jagged knife before addressing them.

“And I’m Dean, his brother. Care to tell us why the hell we’re here?”

“I don’t know, we’re trying to figure that out, so why don’t you put your weapon away, son.” Fury said.

“Why don’t you make me?”

Dean stepped forward, and the whole room jumped into action, with two of the men next to him pulling silver blades out of their sleeves, the other two raising guns. Hawkeye quickly raised his bow, Black Widow jumped into a defensive position as Thor grabbed his hammer, and Loki threw dupes around the room. Ianto, Owen, and Gwen all drew their guns, but weren’t quite sure where to point them. The Doctor jumped excitedly from one foot to another, yelling for everyone to calm down and put their weapons away.

“There’s no need for violence! Put those silly weapons away!”

Weapons were slowly lowered, but things were still tense. Jack waved his hand expectantly to his group and they reluctantly stowed their weapons away.

“That’s better. Now, I’m the Doctor, and these are my companions, Rory and Amy. We were all minding our own business finishing breakfast, and the next thing we knew we were here. Here seems to be a planet like earth, the atmosphere is exactly the same, and the pollution in the air matches the twenty first century, but it isn’t Earth, because the galaxy coordinates are all wrong.”

The Torchwood crew seemed satisfied with his response, but the others weren’t reassured. Stark pulled out two data pads, passed one to Dr. Banner, and the two of them quickly went to work confirming what the Doctor had said. Dean hesitated, but did not lower his knife, his eyes still trained on Fury, expecting him, and the others in the room, to start showing black eyes.

“You can put the knife away, Dean, no one here in this room is responsible for any of us being here.” 

The room turned to look at the tall, lean man with dark curls who lounged in the corner with an unconcerned, almost bored look on his face.

“Are you sure about that?” Dean said his knife still in his hand.

The man scoffed, waving his hand impatiently.

“Oh course I’m sure, look around you, everyone was in the middle of some daily activity when this happened, and no one knows where they are.”

“Well, you seem awful calm. How do we know you aren’t the one who brought us all here?” his brother chimed in.

“Because I’m Sherlock Holmes. I have better things to do than transport people through time and space.”

“Sherlock Holmes, huh? Not only do we have the comic book squad and Captain Underpants, we have a guy pretending to be a Victorian detective. Just great.” said Dean.

“Dean…” a soft, low voice warned, as the man in the trench coat put his hand on Dean’s arm, “He’s telling the truth.”

“Yes, I am. Though I wouldn’t expect you to believe me, Dean, you’re not the kind of man who blindly trusts strangers, are you? Not in your line of work. By your companions guns, and your callouses, you’re hunters. But to get those kinds of callouses you’d have to hunt all of the time, wouldn’t you? Those markings on your knife are very unusual, as are the stains on your jacket; oil, ashes, and blood I’d say. Your brother has similar stains and is wearing a red knotted bracelet, a nice little ward. I don’t think you’re hunting deer. Your two friends there aren’t from around here, are they? You mentioned feathers earlier, right before they tumbled out of midair. They also have silver swords instead of guns, highly unusual. Angels, maybe?”

“Damn, he’s good!” The short redheaded man said before tucking the short silver spike back into his jacket.

The Doctor broke the awed silence that followed Sherlock’s deduction.

“So basically, we’re all from different dimensions, different time lines, and we’ve all been forcibly pulled here, to this time and place. Whoever it is, whatever they’re doing, they decided to make us all neighbors.” The Doctor twirled around to face Amy and Rory, a triumphant smile on his face. “Ha! See, I knew it wasn’t me this time! And it wasn’t the old girl either. I told you I wasn’t going to mess up your honeymoon on purpose!”

“What exactly do you do, Doctor?” asked Fury.

“Well, I’m a time traveler. I go through time and space, do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know…”

“He saves the world, every day. He saves the universe, or a planet, doesn’t matter. He goes where he’s needed, and he helps people.” Amy stood next to the Doctor, her head held high with pride.

Sherlock hummed appreciatively. “A group of superheroes, a time travelling savior, supernatural hunters, a secret world saving organization, Norse demigods. I’d say someone is gathering quite a force.”

“Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” Fury said, quietly.

“The Universe’s Mightiest Heroes is more like it.” Jack replied, laughing.

“Why?” The blond in the spandex American flag spoke up from where he sat at the table behind Fury. “Why would someone bring us all together?”

“How do they even know about all of us?” said the sharp faced man wearing a white lab coat from Jack’s group.

“I don’t know, Owen, but we need to find out.” Jack replied.

“Agreed. I, for one, want to figure out who’s behind this.” Fury said. His words were met with nods and murmurs of agreement. “Since my house has the most room, it can be command central.”

“Technically, this is my tower, Fury…”

“Can it, Stark.”

“Actually, my place has much more room than this.”

Everyone turned to stare at the Doctor, incredulously, except for his companions and Jack, who laughed out loud at the room’s reaction. Fury sighed. He didn’t know what to think of the man with a bowtie, but he sure as hell wasn’t making his headache go away.

“Sir, you live in a police box. A really old Police Box.”

“It’s bigger on the inside.”

Fury gave a small, noncommittal noise before turning his back on the Doctor to focus on the task at hand.

“Well, if you need a place to stay, I’m sure Stark can find you a room. Now, Harkness, I think we should pool our resources to figure out what’s going on here. First, we need a research team. Tony’s good with computers.”

Tony rolled his eyes, and muttered in a high voice, “Tony’s good with computers” as Bruce Banner laughed and poked him in the side. Jack shot the pair a quick glance before returning his attention to Fury.

“Well, on my team, Toshiko Sato is the one who’s good with computers, but Gwen Cooper here handles a lot of our research.”

“Alright then, anyone else good with research?”

Sam stepped forward, after a forceful nudge from Dean.

“I do a lot of research, so does Bobby. He has a whole library of information on supernatural stuff at his house.”

“I have a library in the TARDIS as well.” The Doctor said.

“Ok. I can work with that,” Fury said, “Mr. Holmes, your assistance would be appreciated as well.”

“Fine, we’ll help, but I’m not answering to Mr. Stark.”

Sherlock leaned back in his seat, hands clasped in front of him as he carefully surveyed the group of people behind Fury, a smile playing in the corners of his lips. John felt much less at ease as he shifted nervously from one foot to another. He suppressed a groan as he remembered that he’d had a date scheduled for that evening.

“This is going to be a team effort, Sherlock. You don’t have to “answer” to anyone if you don’t want to.” Jack said, his mind racing to find ways to get on the good side of his friend, Watson, he assumed, so they would be able to keep tabs on the detective. He fully appreciated the man’s sense of independence, but he wanted answers as much as anyone else in the room, and who was better at that then Sherlock Holmes? His train of though was broken when Fury continued assigning roles.

“Cap, Hawkeye, I want you two to begin scoping out the neighborhood, maybe branch out into the surrounding areas. Get as much information as you can.”

“We were hooked into the CCTV system, but that, and the Rift scanner, stopped working when we arrived here. If they have a similar system, I could hack into it.”

Fury spent only a moment glancing over the young Asian woman who he assumed must be Toshiko Sato.

“Alright, Tony can give you any help if you need it.”

“Thank you, but that shouldn’t be necessary.” She shot a curious look towards the handsome millionaire, suddenly itching to see what sort of technology this building had. “I wouldn’t be opposed to comparing notes on our systems though. It might even be a good idea to link them for a while.”

“Great. Come on, I’ll show you command central, and then you can show me your place.” Tony breezed past Fury, held his arm out for Tosh, and they left the room, techno babbling a hundred miles a minute.

As Steve stood up, John tentatively raised his hand. With a laugh, Jack turned to him, and Fury motioned for him to speak.

“I’m an army doctor; I’ve done some reconnaissance missions in my day.”

“All right then, Doctor, reconnaissance duty it is.” Jack winked at him before turning to the rest of the group. “Anyone else want to volunteer for the mission?”

With a sigh, Rory stepped forward. “I was a Roman Soldier for two thousand years, and I travel with the Doctor, I think I’m capable of doing a little snooping around.”

To Sam and Dean’s surprise, Gabriel moved to join the small group, and with a small shrug, they followed. The door opened and a tall, slim woman walked in, laden down with a large box, which she unceremoniously dumped onto the table.

“I found them, Director. They were stuck in the back of a closet. Tony and Toshiko set up the system, so they’re all ready to go.”

“Thank you Agent Hill. Alright, everyone, grab a comm link. Agent Hill can explain how they work. I don’t know what the currency here is, or what the food is like, so we need to take stock of what everyone has. Maria, Natasha, and Bruce you can be in charge of that. I’ll need a few more people to remain behind to take inventory.”

“Good, I’m hungry!” Amy put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the room, noting that there were a lot of people who would be very hungry, sooner rather than later.

“Alright, Ianto, you can be in charge of that in our section. You, angel, what’s your name?” Jack turned to the man in the trench coat, noticing the wrinkled suit underneath.

“Castiel.”

“Castiel. My, you are an angel. You get to be on inventory duty.”

Cass simply nodded, used to thousands of years of taking orders, even though he would rather stay with Dean. Bobby was quick to volunteer behind as well, not wanting anyone else rooting around in his house. Within a few minutes each person had received their com link and the three groups had formed, agreeing to meet up again in the conference room after five hours for dinner. As the researchers and the reconnaissance teams filed out the moved to leave, Fury called to Thor.

“Thor, I need to have a word with you. Loki, don’t even think about walking through that door.” He turned to Captain Jack and held out his hand, which the other man firmly grasped. “Happy hunting, Captain.”


	3. Chapter 3

Maria Hill spared no time in gathering up her “team”, if it could even be called that. She handed out datapads, asking them for their names as she moved through the small group, starting with the redheaded girl.

“Amy Pond. I’m in the TARDIS, across the yard.”

“The police box?” Bruce asked, remembering the Doctor’s remark about it being bigger on the inside, equations running through his head.

“That’s the one!”

With a shake of her head, Maria turned to the man in the trench coat and had to explain how to work the pad after he gave it a puzzled look. She wasn’t sure that he really got it though. She sighed, and he frowned at her accusingly.

“Alright then, Castiel, you can be Amy’s partner. Once you get done in the box, you can tackle Sherlock Holmes place. Natasha, you and Bruce can have a look around Thor’s palace, there’s bound to be food there.”

She turned and handed them pads and they left after Bruce shot Amy a longing glance. He was really quite curious about that Phone Box. She turned to the middle aged man who was poking at the screen in his hand with one finger, a frown on his face.

“My inventory shouldn’t take too long, the fridge is stocked, and I already have a list of all my emergency food supplies.” Bobby wasn’t very pleased with the situation he found himself in, and he would much rather be digging into his books instead of rooting through his refrigerator.

“Wonderful. I’ll let you get to it. You can help with the research as soon as you’re done. Would you like me to assist you so you can finish sooner?”

“No, but thanks. Like I said, this shouldn’t take too long.” With a sigh, he left the room. True to his word, Maria received his list twenty minutes later.

“Ok, that just leaves the two of us.” She said, turning to a thin young man in a grey suit. He didn’t look like much, but from the glance that she had seen between him and Captain Jack, he was probably not someone she should underestimate. She smiled at him, sticking her hand out. He took her offered hand and shook it firmly but gently.

“I’m Ianto Jones. Tea boy of Torchwood, at your service.” He gave the woman a short bow, and she laughed.

“You can call me Maria. I’ve already compiled a list of what we have on hand here, and I have to say, it isn’t much. This used to be Stark Tower, but it was pretty demolished in battle when we had an attempted alien invasion a few weeks ago, and it’s been undergoing a complete remodel.”

“Oh, you get alien invasions too? That’s what Torchwood was formed to guard against.”

“That sounds intriguing. Would you like a hand with your inventory?”

“That would be lovely, thanks.” said Ianto.

The two chatted about the contents of Maria’s list from her perusal of Starks small kitchen, and made a list of the essentials they would need to feed such a large group. They weren’t sure if it would be better to have each “household” take care of their own meals, or have daily group meal times. Their very practical discussion was cut off when they arrived at the door to the Information Centre. Maria was too polite to say it, but she didn’t think it seemed like much, an impression that was confirmed when they stepped inside of the small, run down room littered with post cards, travel brochures, and tourist trap trinkets.

She was impressed, however, when at the push of a button a round door opened in the wall, enabling them to step into a large room with a tall column in the center, and desks full of computer monitors scattered throughout. There was a small kitchen a few feet away from the door. They quickly got to work, trading stories about working in their respective super-secret organizations. It didn’t take long for Maria to realize that she was having fun.

Meanwhile, Castiel was not having as much fun. The Blue Box, a TARDIS, the girl had informed him, was indeed bigger on the inside. It also felt very strange, like it was alive. He didn’t particularly like being inside of it. The kitchen was relatively small, but well stocked. Unfortunately, he was unable to recognize most of the contents of the cupboards. It did not help that the labels on the boxes and cans kept changing. They swirled in and out of focus, to his frustration. For brief moments he would look at a word in English, and then it would change to Enochian before flashing into a strange script that he couldn’t read made up of overlapping circles. From there it would change even further, becoming either a jumble of triangles and rectangles, intricate scratching’s, or some other unrecognizable script. For an angel who could recognize and understand just about every known language on Earth, this was not a pleasant turn of events. When he complained to the girl, she simply laughed.

“Well, you’re an angel, right?”

“Yes, I’m an Angel of the Lord. I know every language that’s ever been written or spoken on Earth.” He cocked his head in confusion, blinking his deep blue eyes as he struggled to read a label on a rectangular tin.

“Well, these aren’t from Earth. The Doctor travels all over the place, through time and space. He visits lots of planets, so we get our groceries where we can.” She shrugged before patting the wall fondly. “The TARDIS usually translates things for us in our heads; she must be having trouble with you because you’re an angel.”

This explanation didn’t please him, but it made sense. They decided that Amy would read the labels and Castiel would type them into the data pad, moving things down from high shelves as needed. Once they finished they moved to the flat next door. Maria was already there, working away with Ianto in Speedy’s Café, so after being given a key from Maria, they moved onto the apartment itself.

When Amy opened the refrigerator door she let out a scream. Castiel was by her side in seconds, pushing his self in front of her, weapon drawn, ready to protect the red head from harm. He slowly lowered his sword when Amy laughed nervously. A bag of fingers sat on the shelf in front of them, next to a jar of eyes. Castiel’s mouth twisted in disgust as he moved to throw the offending objects away. The thought of the humans eating these was absolutely appalling. Amy, however, put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

“We’d better leave those.”

He looked down at the girl, his blue eyes wide in surprise.

“Cannibalism is a disgusting abomination, Amy. We’d do better to get rid of these.”

Her nose wrinkled in distaste before she gave a short bark of laughter.

“I doubt they’ve been eating those. This is Sherlock Holmes’ refrigerator,” she gestured to the mess of beakers and chemicals jumbled up on the table behind them. “He does experiments and stuff, so he might need those. It’s still gross though.”

Amy shivered in distaste as Castiel set the items back on the shelf and reached for a jar of jam. Sherlock’s kitchen did not take long and the two soon found themselves downstairs in the sunny café helping Maria and Ianto.

Across the street, Bobby finally stood at his bookshelf and pulled a heavy tome off of the shelf when he heard a sound behind him.

“What do you want? I’m kinda busy here, you could have called you know.” he said, muttering under his breath about angels not knowing how to use the doorbell as he pulled another book off the shelf.

“Well, where’s the fun in that?” a low, mellow voice said in a smooth British accent.

Bobby whirled around, cursing, and his book very nearly knocked over a glass of whiskey on his desk.

“Crowley! I should have known you’d be here too. Are you the one behind all of this?”

“No, I can’t say I am. Brilliant bit of work though, I’m completely cut off from Hell.”

The demon moved around the devils trap made of florescent paint on the floor, shaking his finger at the hunter when Bobby moved to flip the light switch.

“Ah, ah. you know what they say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

“What do you want, Crowley? I don’t have time for your games.?

“Why, I want to help. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do. It’s not good for business, you know.”

“Right. And let me guess, you’ll be wanting another deal for my soul. Well, the answer’s no.” said Bobby.

“Don’t be stupid, Bobby. A deal won’t work as well with me being cut off from my source, now will it? Besides, Dean would flay me alive, and I’d like to keep this suit undamaged, thank you very much.”

The two stared each other down for a minute before Bobby sighed and tossed him a book. They worked in relative silence, not counting Crowley’s complaints about the quality of Bobby’s liquor, until Bobby got a call from Ianto asking about his medicine supplies. For Bobby, strange was normal. However, this situation took normal up to a whole new level.

Bobby was not the only one on the block with that thought. Natasha had done her very best to avoid Bruce Banner in the three weeks since the incident with Loki and the aliens trashing New York City. Sure, she’d been in the room with him a few times since then, but never alone. And now, here she was, standing in Thor’s kitchen with the man who turned into the Hulk. The same Hulk who had chased her through the Helicarrier and almost killed her. Not her fondest memory, that was for sure. She started guiltily when he asked her to hand him a bowl.

“Can I call you Natasha?” he said.

She looked up at him, head cocked in thought for a moment.

“Um, sure.”

“Call me Bruce. You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know. Well, mostly. Unless there’s something especially stressful going on, the other guy isn’t going to show.”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

He chuckled and they continued on in silence for a moment. The palace that had materialized as “Thor’s House” was extremely ornate, but contained few actual rooms. They had passed through an ornate hall before coming into a large chamber with a few tables, the largest of which was heaped with food. Two doors led off to the side, into what proved to be bedrooms when Natasha peeked. They were both ornately decorated, but sparsely furnished. Based off of Thor’s boastful descriptions of his Asgardian palace, Natasha could only assume that only the most essential parts of it had been brought to… wherever they were.

Now the two stood across from each other at the table, typing away on their data pads, ignoring the awkward silence. Natasha prided herself on being cool and capable, a master assassin, but it was hard to erase the mental image of being chased through a Helicarrier by a “huge green rage monster” to use Tony’s phrase. Tony was never going to let her live that experience down. And now, thanks to Tony’s ridiculous tower, and their even more ridiculous situation, she would have to live in the same building as the man who turned into the Hulk. She’d better make her peace, and fast. As she came to this conclusion, Bruce broke the silence.

“Natasha, I really am sorry about what happened before. I got . . . carried away.” he said.

She had to laugh and looked up at him, carefully searching him. She was surprised to see sincerity in his dark eyes.

“Yeah, well, it had better not happen again.”

“Honestly, I don’t like losing control and turning into the Hulk. I do my best to avoid giving the reigns to the other guy, really, I do.”

“I’ll do my best to make sure that you don’t get angry while we’re all in such close quarters.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

They worked in silence for a little while longer before Bruce left to help with the research after a call from Tony. As he left, Natasha could swear that she heard him moaning about Tony being as happy as a kid in a candy shop and wanting to knock some sense into him. She chuckled, but did some grumbling herself when Maria Hill called to give her more inventory tasks.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony Stark really was having the time of his life. I mean, being forcefully, magically transported to some random place in some random time kind of sucked and Pepper was totally going to kill him for this, but hey, at least he had his Tower and his toys. Not to mention, the new neighbors were pretty freakin’ awesome. Living across the street from another world saving group had its perks. One of those perks was the little Asian chick standing next to him. He had quickly realized that she was a fellow genius when it came to computers and other hi tech stuff. Also, she had complimented him on JARVIS. Thankfully they were hooked up to a wifi network, so linking the Torchwood and Avengers systems had been a breeze. Synching the box of com-units and data pads for Agent Hill had been even easier. And they might have just made a few improvements while they were at it, too… When you were a Stark, you never did anything half assed. The new girl seemed to share the same philosophy.

“So, you can come play with my toys anytime you please, Tosh. Mi casa es su casa, and all that jazz.”

She laughed as they headed down the elevator.

“Wait till I show you what we have over at Torchwood. Your stuff might be fancier, but it isn’t alien.”

Before he could respond, the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a small crowd of people, the ones who had volunteered for research and reconnaissance, with Captain America and Captain Jack at the forefront. Steve was shifting on his feet, noticeably uncomfortable, as the man in the army coat looked him up and down appreciatively.

“Nice suit. Captain America, right?”

“Yeah, Steve Rogers. I wasn’t in the suit before we arrived here…”

“Well, the flag certainly looks good on you.”

Tony had to laugh as Steve scowled at the other man’s wink. He decided to take pity on him. After all, what’s the use of being on a team if you can’t trust your wingman to get you out of sticky situations? God knows he’s been in a few himself. So with that in mind he strode over and clapped the other guy on the back.

“Go easy on him; he’s from the 1940’s.” Tony said in a stage whisper. Steve turned red, but looked suitably grateful when the man’s attention was turned away from him and onto Tony.

“You’re Tony, right? Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Nice to meet you, and all that jazz. So, I guess you guys get the exploration crew and I get to be head of the Science division. No red shirts allowed. Let’s collect our troops and get cracking, Captains.”

Steve opened his mouth to reply but was cut off when Sherlock brushed past.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Tony said.

“I don’t have to answer to you, remember? Now, go play commando, and we’ll compare notes later.”

Sneering, the man left with a sweep of his coat, leaving Stark to roll his eyes. Jack, however, was done flirting and jumped into action, and between them, they were able to get the group paired off with objectives and general directions. It was agreed that Gwen would take to the streets to help gather information in the neighborhood, along with Rory. The Doctor said that he had some tests he needed to run in his TARDIS but he wanted to look at Tosh’s test results first. The two hunter brothers insisted on striking out together, so Jack asked that the two head into the city to see if they could find anything out of the ordinary. Steve asked Gabriel to stick with Clint, who was also in uniform, bow and arrows strapped to his back. They would get to spy on the local government, if possible. With a smile, the angel grabbed the archer and they disappeared, much to everyone’s surprise. Jack insisted that the surly doctor from his team, Owen, start out with John Watson, asking them to check out the hospitals.

This meant, of course that Jack would be paired with Steve, who didn’t look particularly happy with the idea. After changing into normal clothes, he met Jack outside. Jack was waiting for him in a black SUV with darkly tinted windows. The back door opened for him and he hopped in. John Watson sat in the passenger seat, which should have been the driver’s seat from where it was placed, and Owen sat in the back with a satisfied smirk on his face. John was staring in wonder at a small piece of paper. It appeared to be blank, but when he looked at it again words and a picture immediately formed on the page.

“How in the world does it do that?” said John, his voice awed.

“It’s psychic.” said Owen.

“I don’t see anything psychic about it, it’s just an id.” Steve couldn’t see what all of the fuss was about.

“That’s what it looks like, but it’s not. Here, you try.” Dr. Watson handed him the paper.

“Think of something different, anything at all.” Owen suggested.

Immediately a picture of Peggy came to his mind. He closed his eyes for a second and thought of her, and when he opened them the small piece of paper held a drawing of her that he had made ages before with her name next to it in his handwriting.

“Who’s the girl?” asked Captain Jack.

“Someone I used to know.” His tone was flat, and he quickly handed the paper back to John. Jack had noticed his reaction and kindly changed the subject after warning John not to lose the psychic paper. They soon entered the city and it didn’t take long for them to find a hospital. They dropped the two doctors off and drove around for a while, getting the lay of the land firmly mapped out in their minds, looking for anything that looked odd or out of place.

“So, you really aren’t from this time, are you?”

Steve was startled by the question. “No, I’m not.”

“So World War II, huh? That was a crazy time. The French Resistance had some lovely broads, and did they ever know how to party! Could have done without the Nazi’s though, they were way too serious. Their Sturmgewehr rifles had a mean bite, let me tell you.”

Puzzled, Steve turned to Jack, really looking at him for the first time. He noted the man’s coat was WWII RAF issue. He must be an enthusiast then. Jack laughed when he said that out load, and it while it was an amused, full laugh, there was an edge to it.

“No, Captain, you’re not the only one who’s not in his own time.”

“So you’re from the forties too? How did that happen?”

“No, I lived through them, but I’m not from them. I’m from the future, used to be a Time Agent, traveling through time and space.” said Jack.

“Like the Doctor?” Steve was genuinely interested, and found himself reevaluating his opinion of Jack.

“Not really, no. The Doctor is a good man; the Time Agency was a bureaucratic tool. I left the time agency to do some “freelance” work, and then I met the Doctor. How about you? How’d you end up in the twenty first century?”

Steve shared his story has they cruised around the city, making notes of places they might want to revisit later, stopping occasionally to talk to people on the street. Unbeknownst to them, they passed Sherlock twice. He, of course, noticed.

After leaving the Tower, he had found a bus stop at the entrance to their neighborhood that led into the city. He took it. The simple act of getting on a bus told him much about his new surroundings. First off, the driver sat on the left, like in an American car, which he had already observed from the three cars that had passed while he waited at the stop. Secondly, the driver asked him for a dollar. Third, the driver welcomed him to New New New New York when he handed over the only coin he had in his pocket. This was getting interesting.

His trip into the city was also productive. He was able to liberate a few dollars off of a banker and ended up with a girl’s identification card. He was careful to get one off of a readhead, since there were two in the “group” or whatever his new neighbors would be calling themselves now. He frowned as he anticipated the potential state of his flat with those well intentioned strangers going through it, which they undoubtedly would. He would know if anything went missing, and there would be consequences.

He stopped his internal rant long enough to give a world weary man holding a piece of cardboard a few bills. The man was only too happy to answer a couple of questions. An hour later he could be found in a seedier part of town, in a dimly lit tavern, throwing back a glass of beer and laughing with his newfound “friends” who just happened to be prominent in the local mafia. After an hour, he could find nothing more unusual. True, one of them had a wife who was obviously cheating on him, even though he seemed quite ignorant of the fact, and another was actually working for a rival gang, and one had most likely kept more than his fair share of their last heist, but that was nothing unusual in that sort of company.

Sherlock made the rounds of some churches and banks, but similarly found nothing out of the ordinary. A quick trip to a surplus store provided him with a police uniform. His hour at the station was productive in that he was able to lift a few badges and maps, and he learned a few important tidbits if information by watching and listening, particularly near the chief’s office. But again, he did not find anything that indicated anything out of the ordinary police problems. He had just enough money left in his pocket to get a taxi home.

Meanwhile, Clint had gotten a bird’s eye view of the city. Grinning, he stumbled against the roof top wall as Gabriel let go of him.

“Man that was awesome! How did you do that?”

“Angel, remember? That was flying.”

Gabriel smirked, glad to be appreciated for once, making a lollipop appear out of thin air and into his hand. The archer merely lifted an eyebrow before pulling out his binoculars. After a few minutes he pulled out his data pad and made a few notes, his stylus clicking softly against its screen. Gabriel was enjoying himself, stretched out eagle style on a comfortable lounge soaking in the sun, a full glass of something blue in his hand, with a little yellow umbrella sitting jauntily on the edge of the glass. Hawkeye put his equipment away and turned to the angel, not bother to hide his eye roll.

“Alright, it’s time to move.” he said.

“Awww, I just got comfortable!” the angel protested.

“Well, I need a closer look at the government security systems. I need to be on that roof, over there,” Hawkeye pointed to a building situated a few miles away. “But when we get there, we need to be inconspicuous; I don’t want to make any trouble. Yet.”

“You’re no fun.”

In the next breath they were on the roof Hawkeye had pointed out, a block away from the nation’s security building. The archer suppressed a joyful laugh. He liked flying!

“I could get used to this!”

“Well, don’t. I’m not a taxi.” Gabriel said.

“Alright then, make yourself useful,” Hawkeye threw him a small silver device, a small but powerful camera. “Fury wants that somewhere safe, where it can be useful but won’t get noticed. I have four more so we can keep an eye on this place.”

“I could easily get you inside of there, you know.”

Hawkeye cocked his head in thought, looking from the angel to the building.

“Without setting off all the alarms?”

“Easily.”

“Alright, let’s get these cameras set up then.”

They quickly got to work and set up all of their cameras within an hour. They only set off one alarm when they popped into the building itself, and Gabriel disabled it with a small snap of his fingers. A touch to the forehead ensured that the room’s only occupant wouldn’t remember them. After installing listening devices in a few key offices, Gabriel zapped them home. The angel was sorely tempted to go back when he overheard a conversation between a certain pair of hunters as he flew Hawkeye across the city. However, he decided he had bigger problems when he landed in Bobby’s kitchen.

Unaware of the heavenly flyby, Dean and Sam sat in a small rundown restaurant in a rough and tussle neighborhood of New^4 York. Dean put his fork down; the only remaining trace of food on his place was a small pile of crumbs and a bit of apple. Sam pulled his half eaten piece of pie a bit closer and glared at his brother over his laptop.

“No, you may not have mine, Dean.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Dean sighed and let his brother type for a moment longer, his eyes still on the half eaten blueberry confection.

“Dude, how do we know this isn’t just Gabriel, messing with us?”

Sam closed the laptop and slid it into his messenger bag before answering his brother, fork in hand.

“Did you see his face? He was pissed off, Dean. He’s usually pretty proud of himself when this kind of stuff is his fault.”

“So? He could still just be playing us.”

“I don’t think so. Besides, Cas would know if he was.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Sammy.”

They got up in a shuffle of chairs and headed back out to the streets and their unsuccessful hunt for anything supernatural.


	5. Chapter 5

Fury nodded absently as he listened to Agent Hill describe her afternoon’s findings, only half listening to her. His attention is really at the other end of the table, sitting squarely in front of an arrogant, smug Norse demigod who is currently in the act of eating his Asgardian dinner. Loki is making a show of ignoring the others around him in favor of his plate, but Fury knows he’s sizing up everyone in the room. His brother, on the other hand, is both stuffing his face and enjoying the company. Fur winces when the god of thunder leans back in his throne like chair at the end of the table and laughs heartily, his mouth still full of food, at some joke Tony had thrown his way. Bruce, Tosh, and the Doctor also find Tony amusing, which wasn’t good for his ego.

“So I walked into the lab, and Tony throws a screw driver at me.” Banner said.

“A screwdriver?” Thor asked, his mouth full of food.

“It’s a Midgardian tool, brother.” Loki chimed in, rolling his eyes at his brother’s obtuseness.

“Yeah, it’s metal, long and thin, helps put screws where they belong.” Tony was equally impatient.

“So, anyways, he throws a ton of them at me and says we won’t be needing them anymore because they’re obsolete now because he,” Bruce pointed to the Doctor, “has a cooler one.”

“Yup!” The Doctor said proudly before pulling a small device out of his pocket. “It’s sonic!”

Thor looked at it curiously then gasped with delight when the Doctor flicked a button and it glowed green at the end and caused tremors to run through the pot of stew in front of them.

“That’s marvelous!”

“And I’m going to make one.” Stark, as always, was confident. Fury repressed a sigh.

“I made a sonic modulator before I joined Torchwood. That’s how I met Jack.” Toshiko said, and Tony’s smile grew even wider, if that was possible.

The last thing he needed was Tony Stark with a new toy. He’d have Maria put it on the growing list of things that were going wrong in his life at the moment. He gave Loki a firm stare when the demigod glanced his way. He’d had a nice little chat with the two Asgardian’s earlier and while he was now reasonably sure Loki wasn’t the cause of their current predicament, he wasn’t going to let him off the hook. He had made it quite clear that he’d be watching him, and Thor had personally vouched for his brother’s good behavior. However, Nick Fury was not going to let his guard down around the god of mischief.

A few feet down the bench from Fury, Amy and Rory sat across from Sherlock and Watson. Sherlock simply picket at his food, more intent on watching the others around the table. John, however, had no such qualms and tucked into his, eagerly washing it down with large sips of beer. Across from him, Rory was doing the same. The two had struck up a conversation about football scores and seemed to be having a great time. Rory in particular was relaxed, he was used to getting in odd scrapes thanks to the Doctor, and he wasn’t too worried about getting out of this one.

“So, you have a very interesting refrigerator.”

Sherlock’s head whipped forward, and he blinked slowly, as the girl’s words registered.

“Well, John was supposed to go grocery shopping this afternoon.”

“Do you make a habit of keeping fingers in there?”

“Yes. Among other things.”

“Well it would have been nice to have had some warning.”

A small smile played around Sherlock’s lips. He liked Amy’s cheekiness.

“Castiel almost threw them away.”

“That would have been regrettable.”

“Not to mention it would have stunk the place up.”

“Nothing that a little fresh air and a nice sulfurous experiment wouldn’t take care of.”

She wrinkled her nose at the thought and then extended her hand to him across the table.

“I’m Amy, by the way. Amy Pond.”

“You didn’t take your husband’s name then?”

He expected his rudeness to turn her smile into a frown, but he was wrong. She stiffened a bit, but then glanced at Rory and grinned fondly.

“Nope.”

“Sherlock, that’s personal.” John had apparently heard his question. Sherlock didn’t flinch under his disapproving glare, and the blond rolled his eyes, exasperated.

“Just ignore him. His manners need a little work.”

“That’s alright. We live with the Doctor, I think I can handle a bit of rudeness.”

Rory immediately launched into a story involving the Doctor and one of the last alien planets they had visited, where he had accidentally offended the King. Despite the craziness of the situation, Amy was happy.

Sitting a few feet down the bench from her, Dean was not quite so happy. Crowley sat across from him, with Gabriel at his side. Whatever this world was, it was a whole new level of crazy, and he was not enjoying it. He was not the only nervous person in the room. Natasha deftly maneuvered her way up the gold stairs to the gallery that looked down on the dining room, juggling a large plate and two glasses. Clint stood with his back to her, looking out of the enormous floor to ceiling windows that stretched up from the first floor scrutinizing the swimming pool and small garden below.

“Hey.” he said, before turning around with a smile. “Oh, you brought food!”

“Yeah, I thought you might want to taste some of this. I don’t want you to starve while you’re being Mr.Super-Agent here.”

Natasha smiled as he brushed a quick kiss to her cheek before moving to sit at the balcony’s ledge, legs dangling over the side in between the gold railing. She joined him when he patted the floor next to him, setting the plate and cups between them. They finish half the plate of food pretty quickly. Clint finishes off her half eaten turkey drumstick and she’s enjoying the Asgardian cheese and grapes when he addresses her.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was rude to talk with your mouth full, Clint?” Natasha said.

He kicked back a sip of wine before laughing quietly.

“You ain’t my momma. I don’t gotta listen to you.”

It earned him a punch to the shoulder, which he rubbed gingerly, protesting.

“So, how was your day, Tasha?” he said.

“I spent the afternoon with Banner.”

Clint made a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. Personally, he liked the man, despite his dual personality. He supposed he might feel a bit differently if he had been chased through an already crashing helicarrier by the Hulk. Any words of comfort he might have had died on his lips as he noticed a man appear at the table below them. In a second he was on his feet, bow in hand. At the table everyone with a weapon had theirs out and aimed at the interloper.

“My, my, no need for such a violent reaction.” The stranger looked around the room, a scandalized expression on his face as he sat with his feet propped up on the table. He slowly moved them off the table and reached for a goblet. “I’ll take them off if it’s that big of a deal.”

“Who the hell are you?” Fury and Jack said, at basically the same time. The stranger laughed, gesturing between them, but his laughter died away when no one joined him. His face took on a sulky expression.

“Fine then, be that way. And here I was trying to promote the party spirit…” He let out a long suffering sigh and took a deep sip of his cup, smacking his lips in appreciation as Fury grew red in the face, his anger mounting. “My name is Q.”

“No way! Q?” Sam wasn’t sure if he was pissed or excited at seeing another “fictional” character appear, especially one who was so troublesome. The nerd in him was leaning towards excited. However, he was just about fed up with the whole “kidnapped from my own dimension” thing. That crap got old fast.

“You know this clown, Sam?” Bobby said.

“Yeah, he’s from Star Trek. He’s sort of a trickster, bugs the crap out of Picard.”

Gabriel snorted, and both he and Loki shot the newcomer icy glares.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Jack demanded, hands on his hips.

“Why, watching you. You’re such fascinating creatures, what else would I be doing?” Q seemed surprised and inordinately pleased with himself.

“You’re the one who brought us here.” Sherlock stated, not bothering to hide his distaste.

“No shit, Sherlock.” Q snickered. “I’ve always wanted to say that!”

“What do you want with us? Because I hate to break it to you, but we’re not your toys.” Stark said.

“Nothing.” Q frowned when the stares in the room became a bit more menacing.

“Then why are you wasting my time with this?” Fury asked, not at all happy and not afraid to show it. When Q didn’t budge, Fury lifted a finger and Clint pulled back his arrow, itching for Fury to give him the go ahead. With a roll of his eyes, Q started talking.

“Well, my girl and I were camping out in the Twenty first century, lovely place, and after a few marathons and some time on the internet, she said that she wanted to see a series with all of you in it.” He waved his arm around the room with a shrug.

“So you just pulled us all out of our dimensions and dumped us here to watch us?” The Doctor’s voice was dangerously calm.

“In a word, yes.”

“Put us back.” Dean leaned across the table menacingly, but Q simply shook his head sadly.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“You can and you will.” The Doctor said.

“Well, alright, I’ll send you all back to your universes after I get my show. I can’t just disappoint my girlfriend!”

“And if we refuse?” asked Jack.

“Which we will.” Fury chimed in, finger still in the air.

“Then you’ll be stuck here forever. You can’t go home, you don’t even know where you are. If you don’t cooperate you’ll be stuck here forever.”

“And what’s keeping us from taking the TARDIS back?” Amy grinned at him.

“I’m not stupid, child. Right now I’m the only thing keeping her alive, feeding her the energy she needs. She’s such a stubborn thing too, I would have been here much sooner if she hadn’t tried to protest. I’d suggest you cooperate.”

Tony and Thor both grabbed the Doctor as he leaped forward, hands extended, ready to strangle Q in a rare burst of violence.

“This is absolutely mad! You want us to put on a show for your girlfriend? For how long?” John had reached and exceeded his craziness quota for the day. He had kept cool, calm, and collected, but this was just too much.

“Right on! One year, here on this Earth, living normal lives with normal jobs and as friendly neighbors. If you’re good I’ll send you all back home.” Q grinned.

“This is bloody ridiculous.” Crowley said.

“Isn’t it fun? I’ll even give you two weeks to find jobs!”

Clint’s arrow was in the air as Fury’s finger sliced downward. It hit Q in the chest, directly in his heart. He looked down at the protrusion and then slowly back up to Clint, shock on his face.

“What, I thought that was fairly generous! And here I was playing nice! I can tell when I’m not wanted, I’ll be back later.” With a glare he tore the arrow out of his chest and disappeared. Everyone stared at the empty seat in various stages of shock and dismay.

“If this is what dealing with me is like, I’m not sure I like it.” Gabriel said. Sam groaned as Dean buried his face in his hands.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce Banner quickly closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. In, out, in, out, iiiiinnnnn, ouuuuuuuttttt….. I’m stuck, I’m trapped… No. I can’t focus on that. Breathe. In. Out. So. ANGRY. NO. Iiiiinnnnnn, ouuuutttttt….. He had no right!

His concentration broke when he felt a gentle hand on his trembling arm. His green eyes snapped open and he looked down, a growl escaping his throat. Toshiko drew back a little, startled.

“Are you alright?”

“No, not really. But I will be. Just give me a minute.”

Thor gently patted his other arm while holding out a goblet of wine. Banner shook his head in a decisive refusal because what he really wanted was a cup of tea. He took a deep breath and looked up to find Loki, who sat across from him at the large banquet table, slowly scooting his chair back, eyes wide and cautious. Banner couldn’t help it as his chortle of amusement became roaring laughter. The god of mischief narrowed his eyes and sent him a dirty look, but didn’t pull his chair in.

“You ok, Banner?” For once Tony sounded serious. He turned to the Doctor and Tosh to explain, while the rest of the room looked on, startled by the quiet man’s outburst. “He turns into a big green rage monster we call the Hulk when he gets angry. It’s kind of awesome, but in a destructive sort of way. Loki here found that out the hard way. He has pretty good control of it though, most of the time.” He gave them a dazzling smile as Toshiko’s eyes widened in fright and the Doctor looked, awed, towards Banner as the man took a deep breath, finally calm.

“Is everything under control now, Banner?” When he nodded yes, Fury turned to the rest of the group. “So what are we going to do about this Q character?”

As if on cue, everyone began talking at once. The Doctor stood up and waved his hands.

“Hey, hey, hey! One at a time now!” When the room quieted he smiled. “That’s better. Now, we know what Q wants. We need to find out if there’s anything else we can do to make him take us back. We need to explore our options, see if we can talk it out.”

“No, what we need to do is track him down and make him let us go.” Sherlock said.

“I like that idea.” Thor chimed in.

“Can’t be done, Picard tried, and it never worked out for him.” Dean cocked an eyebrow when he got blank looks from most of the people in the room. “Hello? Star Trek? We just have to do what he wants; it’s the only thing that will make him go away.”

“So what are our options for getting back? He said he’s disabled the TARDIS, but do you think you could get my wrist strap to work, Doctor?” Jack was not willing to give in so easily.

“Nah, too dangerous. I could take a look at the rift manipulator though.” The Doctor said.

“Well, this shouldn’t be too hard. Banner and I can try some stuff out in my lab. Reed Richards gets stuck in an alternate dimension once a month and he always seems to come back.” Tony said, refusing to be worried by the situation.

“Yeah, but he’s Reed Richards, and he’s not here, Stark.” Fury said, sending Stark his best don’t-play-games-with-me-I’m-not-in-the-mood face.

“What, you don’t think I’m as smart as Richards? I’m hurt, Fury. And here I thought we were friends.” Tony pouted.

“Stark, just don’t.”

After trading ideas, the group broke up, working hard to find a way out. It took them three days to exhaust their options. They met in the briefing room, tired and discouraged. Even Ianto was drooping as he rolled up his sleeves on the shirt he hadn’t had time to change out of for two days before pouring Jack an extra strong cup of coffee. The younger man had spent the morning with Tosh and Gwen, digging through the last of their archives, but everything that could possibly help them get back had been gone. The Doctor sat next to Jack, both covered in grease from time spent tinkering with the TARDIS, trying to break Q’s hold on her without severing the tiny thread of energy that was keeping her alive. Jack had never seen him look this tired before, and he decided that as adorable as it was, he didn’t like it.

“Do I smell coffee?” John asked as he followed a sullen Sherlock into the room.

“How do you like yours?” Ianto asked.

“Black, thanks.” Tony interrupted before dramatically flopping into the chair next to Sherlock and propping his feet up onto the table in front of the other man. Sherlock pushed Tony’s feet away and leaned forward, head in his hands.

“This is infuriating. No one here thinks anything is out of the ordinary or has ever heard of a transdimensional being called Q!” he said as he pulled at his dark curls.

“Welcome to my life, mate. Don’t let it get to you.” The Doctor said sympathetically.

“Yeah, well, he’s definitely real. I should have shot him with one of my exploding arrows.” Hawkeye plunked down next to John, regret on his face.

“Don’t worry about it, Clint, we didn’t know what he would do, and if he does die, how will we get home?” Steve said as he gratefully sipped his coffee. Waking up in the future and fighting aliens on Earth was one thing. Being transplanted on a strange planet with heroes from other universes and timelines was completely foreign. While the others had been frantically searching for a way back home he had felt lost and unhelpful. He’d spent some quality time with his punching bags before Maria Hill had hinted that Tony and Bruce were about to fall over from starvation. He wasn’t a great cook, but he’d been able to keep everyone from starving. He jumped when Gabriel materialized in the chair next to him.

“Mmmm…. Coffee! Where’s mine?!” the angel demanded. Ianto rolled his eyes. Maria plunked a mug down in front of Gabriel, and he smiled at the sight of creamy, sugary coffee, just the way he liked it. Not that he needed it or anything. Still, it did feel nice after a morning of trying to break through the walls of reality, time, and space, all at once. He’d told Dean he couldn’t do it, but the man had insisted. It was either him or Castiel, and his little bro was feeling a bit rough around the edges. Lower angels were not meant to be cut off from heaven.

The rest of the group slowly trickled in. Steve took a good hard look at the people around the room. They were tired and frustrated. They hadn’t lost hope, but they were getting nowhere and now Q’s threat hung above their heads. None of them wanted to stay here forever.

“Guys, why don’t we try something different, stop trying to defy Q and muscle our way out of here, because it’s obviously not working.”

“What we need is subtlety.” Crowly said. “It’s worked for me in the past. Let ‘im think we’re going along with him while making connections and connecting the dots.”

“So you think an undercover op is the best way to go.” Jack said.

“It makes sense.” Clint commented with a knowing shrug.

“If we all got jobs in strategic places and kept our eyes open we might find something.” Natasha tried to look more confident than she felt. She and Clint had run covert operations countless times before, but never in this kind of circumstance.

Sherlock laughed harshly. “You lot aren’t exactly experts at observing things, but you’re better than most people. It might be worth a try.”

“Let’s do it. This obviously isn’t working, and I want to go home.” Owen said, his frown even more sour than usual.

“Alright, let’s go job hunting.” Fury glanced around the room, meeting the eyes of each person. “With our skills we can easily set up identities and put the proper paper trails in place. I don’t see why we can’t make this work.”

With a slap of his hand Sherlock placed his pilfered identity cards on the table. From the seat next to him, Amy giggled.

“This is going to be fun.”

“It’s not supposed to be fun, kiddo. We need to find this asshat and end him.” Crowley frowned at her before turning to Fury. “But if we have to do the whole secret identity thing, I’m going to be a lawyer. There’s no way I’m giving up my suit.”

“It looks good on you; I think we can make that work.” Jack shot the King of Hell a quick wink.

“I’ve always wanted to work in a little shop.” The Doctor said.

After some lengthy discussion, it was decided that Natasha would infiltrate the local security force to be a double agent. Gabriel was told that despite the many years he had spent undercover he was not to join her. Ianto would be a secretary in the government office, along with Maria, while Gwen and Steve would join the local city police force. This would cover all of the government angles. Clint was assigned to the local airport as a flight instructor so he could observe the air traffic from the ground. He wasn’t complaining.

Thor was similarly excited when Tony suggested he ought to put his hammer to use. With a little help from Sherlock, Tony was able to convince Fury that having the Norse god of thunder pose as a construction worker was a good idea. However, Tony was not able to get Fury to change his mind about putting him behind a desk, working for a computer security firm. Tosh was happier about the prospect though Jack doubted she’d be able to keep Stark in line. Fury decides that Bruce would do best teaching college physics, and that decision does nothing for Tony’s temper tantrum. He is joined by Owen, who is assigned to the hospital closest to the city’s center. John readily volunteers to join him there, but that just serves to further annoy the other man who hates following orders. Owen storms out of the room when Fury announces that the “civilians” can choose their own jobs. By the end of the week all of their needed documents were in place and half of the group had jobs. Q was inordinately pleased.

~~~

Author’s Note:

Finally, I’ve got this story where I want it… For future chapters you can expect less character wrangling and intrigue and more fun. Now I’ve got them where I want them I can start putting them in snarky day to day situations. Like Tony Stark being bored to death answering a phone all day…


	7. War Games

“So, guess what I found today?” On Friday, Tony flopped into a chair at the dining room table and propped his feet up on said table, right next to Natasha’s half empty plate. She pushed his feet off the table with an annoyed flick of her hand. Fury sighed and put his coffee down. The other’s looked up expectantly.

“Well, I was going through my science fiction book collection for stuff to share with Steve, and I came across this.” He slapped a small soft cover onto the table and leaned back, clearly proud of himself. Thor went back to eating his food. Clint settled in for the fun that was inevitably about to ensue. Bruce picked the book up and started flicking through it.

“Ender’s Game. I remember this one. It’s sad.” Bruce said.

“It gave me an idea.”

Maria and Fury groaned at the same time. Clint leaned forward, ready for Tony’s words of wisdom.

“We need more laser tag in our lives.”

“No. Absolutely not.” said Fury.

“Why not? It’ll be fun!” said Tony.

“Have some consideration for Bruce, Tony. He’s been doing very well since we got here, let’s not ruin that.”

Bruce lowered the book. Tony immediately turned to him, finger pointed.

“You’re automatically disqualified and off limits.” Tony turned back to Fury, arms crossed. “See? Problem solved.”

“I call dibs on the laser bow!” Clint said, his face serious.

“I want two guns, and they have to be small.” Natasha chimed in.

“What’s laser tag?” Thor looked genuinely confused.

“It’s a game where you run around with guns and stuff and shoot your friends, except the guns have lasers instead of bullets, so they don’t get hurt. The last one standing wins. And it’s awesome, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t make it.” Tony glared at Fury.

“Did somebody say laser tag?!” Gabriel appeared next to Tony, a smile stretching across his face. “Count me in!”

“You know what, if this causes problems, I am not going to clean the mess up, Tony.”

Fury shook his head and moved to put his dishes into the sink, muttering about stupid adrenaline junkie kids while Gabriel slid into the now vacant spot at the table. Tony buckled down and started making plans. He and Gabriel put their heads together as the others finished their breakfast and got ready for work and interviews. Natasha tossed him an empty small black firearm before she left the building in a demure suit, headed for the capitol and her new job as a secret agent. She was carpooling with Ianto and Maria Hill who had both easily gotten jobs as secretaries, and was in a hurry. Clint was right on her heels and stopped just long enough to hand him a piece of paper with hastily scrawled specs for a bow. Bruce stuck around for a while longer and was able to join him in his lab, checking his math as he tried to figure out a way to tone down the laser made by his arc reactor. He reluctantly left after a few hours to attend an interview for a position as a physics teacher at the top college in the city. As his friends left, Tony thanked his lucky stars that he didn’t have to report to work until Monday, which left him the weekend to play.

During the week since they had all decided to get “normal” jobs and settle in to their new situation, the group had gotten to know each other a little bit better and had formed a semblance of community. As The Doctor put it, they all saved the world on a regular basis, so why not get to know each other a little bit more? Between them, they had a limited number of vehicles, a fact that would need to change soon, so in the spirit of community they had worked together admirably to get each other to different job interviews and the like. Because of this, word got around fast that Tony was planning a game of laser tag. Rory and John stopped by during lunch on their way back from a morning of interviews in the city.

“So, how’s the job search going?” Tony asked, a grilled cheese sandwich in one hand and a small blow torch in the other.

“Great, thanks. I had my second interview at the Princeton Plainesburrow hospital and Rory here had his first. It looks promising.” John said as he helped himself to a bag of chips that sat on the end of the workbench.

Rory was similarly at home in the cluttered, dangerous room, thanks to living in the TARDIS. He gingerly picked up a small pistol from another work bench, weighing it in his hands.

“This is pretty cool. A bit small though. Are you sure the lasers are safe? Bruce said you were basing them off of your chest thingy.” Rory poked at another, slightly larger pistol sitting next to it.

“Yeah, I made some lasers that should power themselves since they’re based off my arc reactor technology. They have nowhere near the power though. Go ahead and shoot me.”

Rory hesitated, but John didn’t. He picked up the larger pistol and whirled around to shoot the wall next to Tony’s head. A small yellow bolt of energy shot out of the weapon before harmlessly hitting the wall. With a smile of satisfaction, Tony pushed a few buttons on the console to his right before picking up a small black circle and placing it on a stool on the other side of the room.

“Here, try that.”

John easily hit the target, causing it to turn blue. A red light lit up on the console in front of Tony, who whooped in victory before dancing over to collect the target.

“Yes! I finally got the relay to work. That way, if someone gets hit in a critical spot, Jarvis can put it on the tally sheet so there’s no cheating about who hit who first. Here, look.”

The computer had generated a chart, and on the top of the list there was a red line that read “Critical hit. Target one. Black Widow sidearm 2. Friday, 12:34 PM.” The other two men were suitably impressed with the system and helped him test its range. The two Brits were eager to join in the fun and John stuck around for a while to help Tony decide which pistols and rifles would be best for which person. Even though Tony had worked with weapons for years, he was happy to have another set of experienced helping hands. John ducked out, however, when it came to actually modifying the weapons. He was willing to break them down for Tony, who had raided the arsenal room Shield had built in their rented floor of the tower, but he was not about to get near the welding equipment or the pile of small glass and metal circles the other man was in the middle of assembling.

Sam came by later that afternoon. It quickly became apparent that he was quite the nerd and wasn’t bad when it came to computers. Tony put him to work on programing the electronic relay suits, which Sam was only too happy to do. In exchange for his help, Tony promised to make a laser knife for the man. They were joined by Amy, who was eager to poke around and help. She was also put on suit duty, feeding the specially made fabric through a series of machines Tony had strung together that cut and sewed the material into shirts and pants that could be specially sized if one programed the machine properly. Amy caught on quickly. She was soon folding sets of black pants and shirts and pinning names to each set. The suits were light weight and breathable, and the nano’s woven into the fabric picked up the lasers even under two layers of clothing. The material had originally been made for another one of Tony’s science projects that hadn’t panned out, and he was very glad he’d held onto it.

Tosh arrived from her first day at work with a computer security company that provided the government with most of their firewall code. She hadn’t heard of the plan yet, but was more than happy to help, fashioning a small laser canon out of some loose material Tony had lying around. Tony was thrilled with her final product and tasked her with coming up with a weapon for Thor while he worked on Clint’s laser bow. It was a little trickier since he decided to forgo the arrows. He ended up fashioning a fixed, rotating arrow to the bow that shot a laser “arrow” when the bow string was pulled back and then released. When Clint finally wandered in, he was pleased with the final product after a bit of adjustment. Gabriel popped in as Sam was leaving to put in a request for two laser swords, one for him and one for Cas. He let Tony play with his angel blade for a moment to get an idea of its size, but quickly popped back out to avoid being put to work.

Dean arrived soon after with a double barreled shotgun and two fresh pizzas. Tony was willing to modify it for him, and the two men bonded over guns, pizza, and Led Zeppelin. They were joined by Sherlock, who ignored the food and the music to sift through the piles of unmodified weapons. He chose a sniper rifle and a small pistol. Tosh helped him insert the laser devices and programmed them into the system. He didn’t stick around, but did grab a slice of pizza for John before he left.

The Doctor and Bruce were the last visitors of the evening. They came in together, deep in a discussion of some obscure law of physics, both very happy to argue with someone who spoke their language. The Doctor was less than pleased by what he found, and flat out refused Tony’s eager offer to modify his sonic screwdriver into a laser screwdriver. An image of the Master’s laser screwdriver flashed into his mind, and he shuddered before emphatically refusing the man’s offer. After poking about the table of revamped weapons, running tests with his sonic, he felt a bit better about the operation. A weapon rendered harmless was an improvement in his book. Bruce was pleased to find his science bro happily situated in the middle of a successful project, and grabbed two slices of pizza before sitting down with a screwdriver to help while Tony told him all about the comings and goings of the day. He was glad Tony was making friends, and as a scientist, the idea of a fun, collaborative process pleased him.

In the early hours of the morning Tony had a pile of laser suits and a line of weapons on the table in his workshop. He surveyed his handiwork with a tired but smug smile.

“Let the games begin.”

Fury, up before everyone else the next morning, posted a sign on the door of Tony’s workshop with some house rules.

_The Shield floor, Bruce Banner’s Floor, Rec Room, and the Kitchen of Avenger’s Tower are off limits._

The main area, med bay, kitchen, and Jack’s office are off limits in the Torchwood Hub.

Bobby Singer’s study is off limits.

Bruce Banner is off limits. Anyone who causes him to Hulk out will be held responsible and will regret their actions.

Anyone deciding they have had enough may stow their laser weapons in Tony’s study or they will be considered still in the game.

Only laser weapons may be used. Or else.

Laser tag activity is limited to our street.

If injured, you are not to complain to me, Maria Hill, or Bobby Singer.

All laser tag activity will cease at 12:00 AM Monday morning, and all weapons must be returned by 12:30 AM.

 

Natasha’s weapon’s and suit disappeared first, unsurprisingly. Gabriel’s items were the next to go. By noon on Saturday morning, the only things remaining on the table were two suits and guns, one of which was labeled Maria Hill. Her gear was gone by dinner time.

The first hit was made by John Watson, who caught Owen as he was sneaking back to the Hub. The younger man never saw who hit him and after shouting a few obscenities slunk back to the relative protection of the Hub, where he was again ambushed, and this time by Ianto. John was quite smug and received a nod of approval from Sherlock before his roommate headed out to retrieve his own gear.

“Little Spider, I know you’re here…” Loki said, grinning as he gripped the rubber staff in his hands. Fury had been against him joining in the fun, but he had refused to be left out, much to his brother’s surprise. However, he was determined to join in the war games, as he persisted in calling them. The staff was not as good as his own, but it would suffice. He currently stood in a hallway of the Avengers Tower outside of their practice room. He knew that his brother was in the habit of visiting the room in the morning, and had planned to ambush him as he left, but someone had beat him to it. So here he was, standing in the softly lit hall, listening to the soft breathing of the female spy as she hid in some dark corner.

“Don’t be a coward, come out and play! We had such fun last time…”

He twirled around when he heard movement behind him, but the girl easily dodged the bolt of energy that flew from the end of his scepter. With a jump and a roll she was behind him, and only his quick reflexes had saved him from the leg that had snatched out to trip him in passing. When he turned, she was crouched, weapons drawn, a fierce smile on her face. He danced around the volley of shots she sent his way, using the staff to deflect some of the bolts of energy, and she twisted and flipped her way down the hall to avoid the blasts he sent back at her. He had to admit, she was good.

“I have you cornered now. No place to scurry off to, Little Spider.”

As he raised his spear for a final blow she pushed off of the wall behind her, diving to his side, twisting in midair to deliver a shot to his back. He froze in shock as she laughed behind him.

“Who’s cornered now?”

When he turned she was standing boldly in the middle of the hallway, hands on her hips, weapons tucked safely in their holsters at her sides. He did not like the smug grin on her face. Glowering, he raised his spear, but it wouldn’t fire.

“Nope. Not going to work. Stark programed all of the weapons to be disabled for five minutes after you’ve been hit.” She said.

After a final grin she threw herself into a backflip before disappearing down the hall, leaving him to sulk. He cheered up a bit when he landed a blow on Thor when the larger man exited the training room fifteen minutes.

“You’ve bested me, brother,” Thor said with a sheepish grin. “I must admit, this weapon the Iron Man has provided me with is much different from Mjolnor. It takes some getting used to; I may end up trying one of their Midgardian weapons.”

“Oh, don’t make excuses, brother. It doesn’t suit you.” Loki replied before teleporting off to stalk Tony Stark.

Thor’s hammer was made of a light mesh material so as not to hurt anyone, and much to his disappointment it did not return to him after he threw it. He ended up tucking it into his belt and grabbing one of the spare pistols, which he easily got the hang of.

Meanwhile, the Winchester boys were at an impasse, with Sam crouched at the bottom of the stairs and Dean hiding around the corner at the top as they threw friendly insults at each other. Dean had been woken up around 10 that morning by Castiel, who had pleaded for the man to help, his blue eyes wide and longsuffering, a pile of black fabric and the modified shotgun cradled in his arms. The man in the bed had groaned and was about to roll back over and pull the pillow over his head when Gabriel had appeared behind Castiel, quickly “slashed” his shoulder with the laser sword while calling out the number three hundred and two before sending Dean a wink as he disappeared.

“Dean, please… I need your help.”

The next time the archangel popped into his room they were ready, Cas with his laser sword drawn and Dean with his rifle. The archangel laughed gleefully as his little brother stabbed him in the gut.

“Now you’ve got it!” the Trickster said.

“Dean explained how it works.” The blue eyed angel was at Dean’s side in a second, and the fabric on the hunter’s shoulder flashed blue. Now that he understood the game, the warrior angel was not to be underestimated. However, Sam was ready for him down the hall with his own laser knife. Bobby sighed when Dean let out a string of colorful curses from the top of the stairs and went about getting his second cup of morning coffee with a fond smile.

The Doctor surprised Amy in the TARDIS kitchen around lunchtime. She was sneaking in, hiding from Rory, and did not expect to see the Doctor there, much less see him with a laser water pistol.

“Ah ha ha! I got Amy Pond!!!” he danced happily around the kitchen table as she spluttered and protested. Rory was quick to sum up the situation when he sprinted into the room a few seconds later, and it was Amy’s turn to giggle as the Doctor wailed at being shot. She rewarded Rory with a kiss before settling down to lunch, which was an active affair every time one of their weapons unthawed.

Next door, Sherlock was in the middle of a showdown with the archer on top of Avenger’s Tower. He sat crouched in front of the window overlooking the street, mirrors strategically placed so he could see out without revealing himself. He had already spotted Hawkeye on top of the building on the other side of the street, but his first shot had obviously missed as it was quickly returned. That had been twenty minutes before. So far neither one of them had landed a hit on the other, though the archer had managed to get Stark when he had attempted to sneak up on him. Someone needed to inform Tony Stark that sneaking wasn’t an option while wearing a metal suit. He had managed to dodge Sherlock’s blast while his back was turned to deal with Stark. Sherlock crept to the other window to look up, and realized his mistake a second too late as the archer smiled after releasing his bow string. A half second later a small yellow bolt ricocheted off of one of his mirrors and hit Sherlock in the side. He smiled ruefully before resuming his post. His smile turned into a chuckle as one of the angels from next door to the Tower, Gabriel, materialized behind Clint. His laugh died abruptly however as a shot hit him in the leg and he whirled around to see the redheaded assassin smiling sweetly down at him. He hadn’t noticed her enter. With a wink she was gone on silent feet, leaving him fuming for not noticing her presence in his flat sooner.

In the Hub two yards over, Ianto was crouched behind a pile of boxes in the depths of the Torchwood storage rooms.

“He’s two rooms over and heading your way.” Tosh’s soft voice whispered to him from his small ear bud, causing the young man to double check his position and settle his pistol more firmly in his hand.

After Jack had caught Tosh off guard as she was coming out of the ladies room she had formed an alliance with Ianto, who had descended into the lower levels of the Hub after Owen and Gwen had chased their leader there. Now the other two were off playing laser tag hide and seek and god knew what else in the holding cell area, while Tosh watched the CCTV screens in the main room of the Hub, alerting Ianto to Jack’s location as the two men stalked each other through the storage rooms. Ianto had already managed to get the older man once, who had laughed before disappearing with a challenge and a wink. That had been a good fifteen minutes ago. Now he could hear soft footsteps outside the door of the small storage room. He resisted the urge to shoot when Jack leapt from one side of the door to the other, and his patience was rewarded when Jack crept into the room. Ianto shot him squarely in the stomach.

“Ah! You’re too good at this, Mr. Jones.”

“Thank you, sir. I do my best.” Ianto stood, not bothering to hide his triumphant grin.

“I’d do better if you weren’t cheating. Tosh, stop helping him out, it isn’t fair.” He shook his finger at the security camera, making her laugh. However, she averted her gaze when Jack started chasing Ianto around the small room in pursuit of his “consolation prize”. That was something she did not need to see. Thankfully, the Hub door noisily rolled open, revealing Doctor Banner, a small white flag that Tony insisted he have held sheepishly in one hand.

“Hello, is it alright if I come in? I heard this is an off limits area for laser tag, so I thought I’d see if I could find some company.”

“Sure, come in. I was just helping Ianto get Jack down in the lower levels.” She eagerly waved Bruce over to her station.

He seemed interested in seeing her set up, and before long Tosh was fishing out another comm unit and changing the channels on her monitor. With Bruce whispering directions in her ear, she easily got the drop on Owen and Gwen, much to their surprise, before descending a level to hunt down Ianto and Jack, who had resumed their game of cat and mouse. Bruce was happy to find a way to participate in the groups antics without risking the Hulk coming out to play. It wasn’t long before Natasha slipped into the building, and he shot her a guilty smile. She simply rolled her eyes at him before giving the monitors a good long look before slipping down the stairs. Tony was the next person to try and infiltrate the Hub, and he gave Bruce a harder time.

“Come on, Banner. I won’t tell Fury you’re playing if you let me in on the comm system.”

“No, Tony. You have your suit on, that’s all the help you need.” he gently chided the other man.

“Alright, I’ll just patch myself in, then. Jarvis, get onto it.”

“Have fun with that. Tosh put a special inscription on the channel in case you came by.”

“Fine then, I’ll do this the old fashioned way.”

He left in a huff that lasted until he got to the stairs, where he sent out a happy phone call to Steve, telling him that the party had moved and to get his ancient behind over here. Bruce didn’t have time to be bothered with it though, as Gabriel appeared behind Tosh. His warning was seconds too late, and the angel laughed before disappearing, leaving Tosh to swear quietly, before receiving directions on her next target from Bruce. A few minutes later Steve appeared in the doorway in jeans and a leather jacket, touting his shield and a laser pistol. After a quick consultation with Tosh, Bruce tossed him a comm link and directed him downstairs to where Natasha was stalking Owen.

Steve was thoroughly enjoying the game of laser tag. He’d spent the day before holed up reading the book Tony had found for him, and he’d been intrigued by the idea. He’d been the last of the Avenger’s to pick up his gear that morning, since he wanted to finish the book first. After changing into the black suit back in his quarters, he asked Jarvis to locate the others for him.

“Mr. Barton is currently setting up his gear on the front eastern corner of the roof while Ms. Romanoff and Mr. Stark are on the 13th floor. I believe Ms. Romanoff has him cornered there. Thor and Loki are outside of the training room, Mr. Rogers.”

“Thank you, Jarvis. How do I get to the 13th floor?”

When he joined them, Natasha had just gotten a hit on Tony in the still unfinished floor of the building. He quietly crept behind a hanging plastic sheet, moving around the long concrete pillars to get behind the Black Widow. Loki beat him to it, however, materializing behind her with his staff ready. She wasn’t fast enough, and the light blow sent her sprawling. Steve jumped to his feet, ready to rush to her aide against the Asgardian towering over her.

“Payback does feel satisfying.” He smirked and then reached his hand out to help her up.

Surprisingly, she took it, motioning behind her back at Steve, giving him the sign to shoot before moving out of the way. He took the shot and Loki gasped in surprise as the head of his staff turned blue.

“You deceptive little minx!”

Natasha sprang away with a laugh, disappearing behind a pile of boards as Tony’s lasers came back online. Tony soon got the drop on Steve, and Natasha repayed him for his help with Loki by disabling Tony after he landed a hit on Steve. Thor soon joined them, and Tony flew out an open window to go bug Clint on the roof, leaving Steve to dodge a joint attack from the Asgardian brothers. Thor had picked up a gun and was still learning how to use it effectively, sending a shower of laser bolts in Steve’s direction that he easily fended off with his shield. Loki threw a number of duplicates around the room, causing Steve to retreat with his back against a pillar. Unfortunately, he targeted the wrong dupe and was soon sporting a blue arm. As Loki triumphantly headed next door to bother the Winchester brothers, Steve took a moment to show Thor how to properly use a gun. Minutes later Thor showed he’d learned his lesson well by taking down Gabriel when he appeared. Thor pursued the fleeing angel, but Steve was joined by John Watson and the two soldiers had a nice time dodging each other’s laser bullets.

By midafternoon the entire group was in the sub levels of the Hub, happily shooting it out. After an hour long truce was called for dinner, the action moved to Avengers Tower for the evening. The next day was even more eventful since the ice had been broken between the different groups, who now felt free to come and go as they pleased in the “laser tag zones”. During the night Tony had made a few more laser canons, laser grenades, laser swords, and laser throwing knives, which were quickly doled out among the group. By midafternoon things were in full swing again and new alliances had been made while new rivalries were being played out.

Sherlock had become adept at scoping out and picking off Natasha and the two quickly engaged in subtlety’s, feints, and double blinds as they hunted each other. Gabriel and Loki had declared open war on each other when Loki picked off Gabriel’s target in the 13th floor of Avenger’s Tower. Gabriel had been knife to sword with Sam when the tall, thin god of mischief appeared behind them and tagged them both with a small spray of rubber throwing blades. Sam made himself scarce when the Archangel pulled himself up to full height and swaggered over to the smirking mischief maker.

“The other Winchester boy mentioned that you call yourself Loki.” he sneered.

“Yeah, little witness protection plan I entered for a few thousand years. I hear you’re from Asgard.”

“I am.”

“Well, since I’ve been there too, I know what I’m talking about when I say you’re a great big bag of dicks.”

Loki’s smile faded fast and Gabe shot him a wink before disappearing. As soon as his blade was back on again, Loki got it in the back. The other’s quickly found that it was best to not disable one when the other was around or they would become the substitute target.

Not all of the rivalries were quite so nasty, however. Steve, John, and Jack, the three soldiers, had a few friendly shootouts before teaming up to storm a roomful of their friends and teammates. Toshiko and Tony formed a technological rivalry, setting up traps for each other and trying to hack into the other’s networks. And of course, Sam and Dean ambushed each other just as often as they fought together.

The team ups were often temporary and eclectic. The Doctor ran for cover when Amy and Jack got together, chasing him down the Tardis corridors before cornering him in the Library, where he turned the tables on them. He fled, to Amy’s giggles, when Jack decided a bit of skinny dipping was in order. He found Rory busy helping John in a mock firefight between the two of them and Steve and Gabriel in Bobby’s backyard, until all five of them were picked off by Clint from one of the many windows in Avenger’s Tower. Across the street, Dean and Cas were trying to sneak up on Sherlock, who was currently in league with Loki, until Gabriel swept through and got them all. Meanwhile, Maria Hill had joined Tosh in stalking Jack and Ianto through the Hub, while Bruce helped the two men. Amy soon joined Sherlock in an attack against Thor and Sam at the Asgardian minipalace.

Fury was aware of it all from his office deep in Avenger’s Tower. Jarvis was giving him hourly updates and after a morning of paperwork, he kicked back and put his feet up on his desk to read his worn copy of “The Sun Also Rises,” occasionally asking Jarvis for video feed of the groups antics. Thankfully, Tony’s crazy idea had turned out to be a great team building exercise. He even briefly considered joining in the fun himself, but decided on waiting until next time, which was bound to happen sooner rather than later. At 11:50 that night he let out a sigh of relief, put his book down, and headed to Tony’s workshop where the group was beginning to gather to give up their weapons and get the tally of the weekend’s points.

Natasha was at the top of the list, to no one’s surprise.

“Babe, you are scary good with a gun!” Clint proudly said as she grinned smugly.

“Scary is right…” Sam chimed in, which made a few people laugh, and earned him a view of her tongue as she playfully stuck it out at him.

John came in second, which earned him a handshake from Steve. Gabriel came in third, much to his chagrin.

“What do you mean, third place?! I was all over the place!”

“Most of your hits occurred after you had already disabled your opponent, so they only earned you single points.” Jarvis said, his voice prim, making the angel brighten up a bit.

Sherlock was on the top of the leader board for least hits taken, followed by Steve, thanks to his shield, and Clint, simply because he had stayed out of sight most of the time. Overall, everyone agreed that the weekend’s entertainment had been a success.

“Alright, next weekend, let’s divide into two teams and play laser tag capture the flag!” Tony said, a smile stretching across his face.

“Stark, no. Let’s keep this down to a once a month affair.” Fury said firmly.

“Aw, but Natasha and John can be team leaders, and one can be stationed here while the other group is in the hub, and…”

“Another time, Iron Man. Let’s give the others a chance to rest and regroup first.” Thor said, to the relief of a few among the group.

“Fine. Jarvis, save the stats and start compiling a team list with Natasha as one team leader and John as the other.”

As Tony poured over his computer, the others finished stashing their weapons and suits and wearily but happily set off for the night.


	8. Chapter 8

Monday morning came bright and early, which pleased the Doctor, but made Amy groan and tuck the sheets over her head when the Doctor came to check on her and Rory after they had pushed the snooze button twice.

“Time to get up, sleepyheads! The sun is shining and our new jobs await us!”

“Go away.” said Amy, above Rory’s unintelligible mutterings.

“I made coffee…” the voice in the doorway sang.

“Fine. We’re awake. Just give us a mo.” Rory slowly pulled the sheets down and experimentally stuck a leg out, which sent the Timelord scurrying away.

Forty five minutes and three cups of coffee later they cruised out of the Tardis doors in a small red minicooper that the Doctor had unearthed from the depths of his time machine in the early hours of the morning. Rory piled out at the gate to go find Owen and John, who were waiting for him in the Hub. The three men would be heading out to the hospital together, while Amy and the Doctor would take the smaller car to their jobs at the mall. Rory waved worriedly as the little red car sped down the lane and around the corner, not so secretly relieved that he wouldn’t be subjected to the Doctor’s driving. Amy, on the other hand, was having a blast. Once they pulled onto the interstate, she easily taught the Doctor how to play yellow car, occasionally reaching out to grab the wheel when he would turn to point at passing scenery or debate the validity of claiming a red van with yellow letters as a yellow car.

Once the Doctor had spun the little red car into a parking spot Gabriel materialized in the backseat, brown bagged lunch in hand. His sudden appearance caused Amy to jump and squeal in surprise.

“Give a girl some warning! Sneaking up on me like that isn’t fair, angel boy!”

“Tricks of the trade, red.” he replied with a wink.

“Out, out! We’re going to be late! What are you doing here, Gabriel?” The Doctor said as he ushered them up to the busy mall, adjusting his red bow tie over the mandatory blue “Fluffy Bear” polo shirt.

“A job, duh. It’s our new mission in life, remember? Have normal jobs?” He grinned as Amy snorted after glancing at the Doctor’s new get up. “I didn’t feel like playing super-secret special ops Boy Scout with Fury or Harkness, so I thought I’d tag along with you guys.”

“So did you actually get a job, or are you just tagging along to get us fired from ours?” Amy said, with one eyebrow lifted.

“I’d like to keep my new job, thank you very much!” The Doctor said, indignant.

“Fine, because I have one of my own! I’m going to work in the candy store.”

“Oh, you would!” Amy said, making the Doctor laugh.

They parted at the escalator, Amy and the Doctor heading to the second floor, while Gabriel meandered down the crowded corridor to “Heavenly Sweets”.

Meanwhile, Clint was on his first break of the morning. He and Thor had set out together before dawn to begin their new jobs. After dropping the god of thunder off at a construction site, but not before snapping a picture of the grinning giant in his new shiny yellow hard hat, he made his way onto the interstate to the outskirts of the big city to a small air strip that was frequented by the young and foolhardy members of the elite and powerful. His forged pilots’ license had held up beautifully, and Bobby was a master at manning the phone lines and giving good character references. As a result Clint got to spend the morning in the air, proving that he could teach young hot heads how to fly both small planes and helicopters.

Being in the air had felt marvelous, he reflected as he snuggled deeper into the grass behind a hanger. It was almost as good as the shots he had gotten in on Natasha the day before. He grinned unrepentantly as he thought of the look on the Black Widow’s face. Tony Start was a genius, he decided as he set his phones alarm so he could catch a quick fifteen minute catnap. He was going to give his first lesson in a half hour, and he wanted to be wide awake before taking the swanky young hot shot and his idiotic friends who were currently being given a tour of the hangers up in the air.

Tony was also reflecting on the weekend’s fun, but he wasn’t smiling. The billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist was about two seconds away from throwing his keyboard out of the window. Oh, but that’s right, he didn’t HAVE a window. Because he was in a cubicle, and apparently, cubicles weren’t big enough for windows. Which just made the urge that much stronger. He missed Jarvis, he missed his lab, and machines, heck, he even missed Dummy as he sat in the little, tiny, claustrophobic cubicle with a ridiculously large headset on, answering stupid IT questions from people who worked in the government building.

He had hacked into the main system an hour after arriving, with his phone no less, and no one had noticed for an hour and a half. That made him smile, almost. Until Tosh called and told him to “Please play nice, Tony. We’re on a mission here, remember?” Now, four hours into the new job, his new boss loomed over him with an outstretched hand holding a file book of rules and procedures for answering the phone. Apparently answering with “Tony Stark, how can my awesomeness be of use?” when one of the higher ups called in was frowned upon. As was laughing hysterically and then hanging up when a secretary called because a cd was stuck in the drive.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I really don’t like being handed things.” Tony said, arms crossing over his chest.

The potbellied grey haired man frowned down at him.

“You’ll have to get used to it. Welcome to the real world, kid.”

“You know what? The real world sucks. I quit.”

Tony was out the doors before the other man knew what was happening. After reaching the elevator he turned around and went back to the stuffy cubicle filled room, and announced to a sea of awestruck faces that the coffee in the break room sucked and his robot could make a tastier brew. Feeling pleased, he turned and left for good.

His high feelings weren’t in any way diminished when he reached the curb and realized he had no ride home, and only a vague idea of which direction home was in. He didn’t hesitate before whipping out his phone and calling Fury.

“Hey, I decided to play hooky. Is mommy there? I need a ride home.” He could practically see Fury sigh over the phone.

“You really don’t play well with others, do you Stark?”

“Nope. Especially if they’re politicians or have the IQ of a brick, which just about covers everyone in there. Except for Tosh of course. Hmmm, maybe I’d better go see if she wants to be rescued too?”

“You will do no such thing. Steve is waiting for you with a ride home in the coffee shop two streets over.”

Fury hung up on him before he had a chance to deliver his latest witticism. The coffee shop wasn’t hard to find. Neither was Steve. Tony really needed to take him shopping, the man dressed his age, and all of the plaid button ups were beginning to grate on Tony’s fashion nerves. He plopped into the open chair next to the captain with an exaggerated sigh before stealing his coffee and taking a long swig. Which was a mistake because it didn’t have nearly enough cream or sugar in it. However he was able to choke it down.

“Tony, that was mine.”

“I’d say I owe you one, but that was terrible. Don’t you believe in cream or sugar?”

“I’ll add it to your tab.”

“Tab? Since when do I have a tab?” Tony frowned at the blonde super soldier.

“Since I lost twenty bucks to Fury. I thought you would quit three hours ago.”

“Huh. I lasted four hours, didn’t I? Not too shabby.”

“Clint thought you’d quit after twenty minutes.” Steve said, pushing a few packets of sugar and creamer in Tony’s direction after the waitress brought back another hot cup of coffee.

“Hey, why don’t I get the fresh cup? I’ve been working all morning!”

“Because you stole mine, remember? And I’ve been working too.”

“Yeah, drinking coffee in the shade all morning while reading a stack of newspapers is really hard work.”

“I had an interview with the police department this morning. Gwen was able to “transfer” from her old job, but I have to start from the bottom and work my way up.”

They spent the next hour happily bickering over coffee and sandwiches before heading back to the Tower. Despite the failure of the morning, Tony was feeling quite proud of himself for holding a “real job” for more than an hour. However, he swore not to do it ever again and immersed himself in researching the history of clean energy on this new “earth”. Steve was sent next door to relieve Bruce from his “Loki sitting duties” by Fury, who was secretly proud of Stark for sticking with it for as long as he did. And for winning him his bet.

Steve found Bruce and Loki sitting at a small table by the large glass doors that opened to the Asgardian backyard where the pool glittered in the midday sun, brows furrowed over a game of chess. They barely acknowledged his presence as he approached, can of soda in one hand, sketch pad in the other. He settled into the large green chaise lounge that he was sure had been gold the day before. Bruce sat back, a smile forming in the small wrinkles next to his eyes as he reached forward and moved one of the white knights across the checkered board, deftly sweeping up a black bishop and depositing the white piece in its place. Loki swore softly and sharply, causing Steve to grip his pencil tightly and prepare for action.

“Check.” The corners of Bruce’s lips were turned up into a smile now too.

Loki simply scowled before crossing his arms over his chest and examining the board again. Steve settled back into the lounge. The motion caught Bruce’s eye and he chuckled, guessing that the Captain was feeling nervous around the god of mischief.

“That’s the first time I’ve checked him in an hour. So far we’re at a draw, I won a game, and he won a game.”

“Well, I’ll play the loser when this game’s done.” Steve replied.

“Hm, then what would occupy me?” Loki asked, straight faced, startling a laugh out of Steve.

“Hey now, you haven’t won yet.” Bruce tapped the board and the game continued.

Unsurprisingly, Loki won, but just barely. He was still smug. Steve put down his drawing pad after closing the page on his new sketch of the two and their chess board when Bruce pulled out Monopoly and Risk from a large bag bulging with angular boxes. Loki’s eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together with only partially feigned glee.

“Oh, I hardly know where to start!”

“Steve, you haven’t played yet, you choose.” Bruce said, to Loki’s disappointment.

“Monopoly. It’s been years, literally, since I’ve played it.”

Steve proved to be a good player and was actually winning four hours later when Thor burst in the door, full of excitement over a successful day. The big blonde was even happier to see two of his friends spending their time peaceably with Loki and proceeded to call the others on the block to invite them over for “sustenance and a refreshing swim in the pool after a day of hard and fruitful labor!”

Sam and Bobby showed up fifteen minutes later with some hamburgers. Amy managed to drag the Doctor and a tired Rory over, in swimming trunks no less. The Doctor disappeared back to the TARDIS to make some pudding for the impromptu dinner while Thor fired up the grill. Bruce and Sam were quick to chase him away however, when it became apparent that he was not much of a grill master. Fortunately, the Asgardian’s kitchen was well stocked with spices and herbs. The two bonded over shared recipes and the excitement of being a part of a new college semester that would start the next week while the other’s finished the board game and began splashing around in the pool. Tosh and Jack arrived with a salad as the burgers began to brown and they were quickly followed by Sherlock and John, who each toted a case of beer. Sherlock joined Loki where the demigod sat at the small chess table just inside the large glass doors.

“Hm, won any good matches lately?” Sherlock asked, sitting down and opening a bottle of water.

“Just this afternoon, as a matter of fact.” Loki said, disdainfully watching Jack tackle a squealing Amy into the pool.

His brother was tossing a beach ball around with a few of the others, and his roar of a laugh briefly filled the room. His breath caught briefly when the ball hit Bruce Banner upside the head, but the meek scientist did nothing but laugh it off when the older man, Bobby Singer, yelled for everyone to keep the water away from the grill.

“So, have they put you to work yet?” Sherlock asked, genuinely curious.

“That is none of your business.”

“Fury did find you a job then. One you don’t like, I gather.” He casually waved off Sam’s gesture that the food was ready.

“I don’t see you working.”

“Then you haven’t been looking hard enough. Your move.” Sherlock gestured to the chess board, where he had set up the scattered pieces and moved a pawn.

With a lifted eyebrow, Loki waved his hand, causing the black knight to move across the squares. John saw them from his perch on the side of the pool and smiled. Trust Sherlock to go to a party and become locked in intellectual combat with the god of mischief.

“Good day then?” Tosh sat down next to him, a plate of food in her hands.

“Yeah, I suppose it was, actually. Yours?”

“I can’t complain. It’s not as good as saving the world, but breaching firewalls is kind of fun.” Tosh said, making John laugh.

“I know what you mean. Helping Sherlock with his cases is much more exciting than normal everyday life. The hospital work here should be pretty exciting though, I’m going to start helping another doctor tomorrow. He heard my accent in the lunch room this afternoon and convinced his boss to have me work for him while a member of his team who’s British is away on vacation. One of the other doctors told me he was difficult, sounded a lot like Sherlock, actually…”

John was interrupted when Gabriel, grasping a dry, fully clothed, and protesting Dean, dove into the pool right in front of him and Tosh, making a splash that started a water fight. Needless to say, Thor’s first day of work pool party was a success.

Tuesday morning began late for Natasha Romanoff, which gave her the job of taking Loki in for his first day of work. Thor had wanted the job, but his construction job began at the crack of dawn and Loki was unwilling to wait around, besides the fact that Fury didn’t trust him to take the bus to work. Covert security cameras had already been installed in the animal shelter and Maria would be lurking around the vicinity for the next few days.

At 10:30 the demigod showed up in front of Avengers tower in dark jeans and a green t-shirt, his long hair hidden beneath a bandanna. He glowered at her, clearly unhappy about the situation. After a long chat with the two Asgardians, Fury had decided that there was no need to lock Loki up if he behaved himself and agreed to work to make up, in some small way, the damage that he had done in invading earth under the influence of Thanos and the Tesserect. Loki wasn’t happy about it, but he was trying to make his brother happy. Community service, however, was not what he had been expecting. In all actuality, he felt a bit put out that he wasn’t being used to work against Q.

Natasha didn’t care what he thought or felt, and didn’t trust him out of throwing distance of Thor. She was used to following orders however, and gave a small nod in his general direction before climbing into the front seat of one of the flashy sports cars that Tony had thankfully kept in the tower. The ride to the shelter wasn’t a long one, and it was made in silence. She dropped him off at the curb with a terse “Behave yourself. Tony will be by at five to pick you up.” which was greeted by the flip of a finger, a gesture learned from the aforementioned Tony, no doubt, before speeding off to the inner city and her own new job as an agent. 

With a sigh and a frown Loki pulled himself up to his full height and strode up to the squat, dirty looking red brick building. A dirty white sign over the door declared it to be “New New York Animal Shelter No. 6.” A bell jingled annoyingly when he entered the dingy entry room. A couch sat on one wall next to a side table with stacks of old magazines. The sounds and smells of animals flooded his Asgardian senses as he fought the urge to turn and walk back out. Before he could do so an older dark skinned woman rounded the corner and came to stand behind the high front desk.

“Hello, honey, what can I do for you today?” She flashed him a wide white smile.

“I’m Loki Laufyson.” he said flatly.

“Ah, you’re early. I’m Sherina Conners, you’ll be reporting to me. Come on back, honey, we’ve all been looking forward to meeting you!”

With an internal groan he followed her as she lead the way down the hall, pointing out the coat room where he signed in, the lunch room, the two medical examination rooms, the bird room, and supply rooms, chattering steadily the entire way. His Asgardian upbringing had taught him some manners, and while he made no efforts to be charming, the woman’s grating exuberance and Fury’s threats impressed him to be civil. With a start he realized that the lady had asked him a question.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said which do you like better, cats or dogs?”

“I have no preference.” Loki said, suppressing a sigh.

“Cats it is then. You strike me as a cat person, and I’ve never been wrong about that before, not in the thirty years I’ve worked here. Have you ever had a cat before, honey?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re about to have one hundred and three of them. This rehabilitation program that nice Mr. Fury was telling me about sounds wonderful. Fine young men like you deserve a second chance in life. I wish my Johnny had a program like that. He was in and out of jail for years, may he rest in peace. If you ever need to talk, honey, you know where I am.” Sherina put her hands on her ample hips and smiled up at Loki.

They had reached a white door at the end of the hall. It was adorned with a colorful sign that said “cats” and had seen better days. Loki could already smell and hear the animals inside before his guide opened the door. Opening the door only made the smells worse.

“Here’s the cat room. David, this is Loki, our newest helper. Loki, David here will show you how we clean their cages and transfer them over. You have fun now!” After another wide smile and delivering a quick pat to Loki’s arm the woman left.

Loki was relieved to find David much less talkative. The man walked him down the row of metal cages, guiding him through the process of cleaning them. After a directed attempt, David stood back and let Loki get to work, moving to the row of cages on the other side of the room. Cracking a cage door open, Loki slowly reached in to pull out its grey stripped occupant. The little creature, “Earl Grey” according to the slip of paper on its door, only backed further into the corner. With a sigh, he stilled his hand and waited. The cat did not approach. He was able to grab it with little effort. The young creature struggled frantically, but Loki was able to gently hold it still before placing it in the most recently cleaned cage. The dirty cage was quickly cleaned and furnished with a fresh scrap of blanket, tray of litter, and food and water bowls. Mentally ticking off one in his head, Loki moved to the next dirty cage. The large fat calico in the next cell was thrilled to have him pick her up. She clung to him, purring, when he tried to transfer her from his arms to the clean cage. Loki sighed, yet again. This was going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I'm working on the next chapter, but I could use some ideas!!! Let me know if there are any fun situations you'd like to see any of the character's in. I've focused on my favorites, so a few characters in my massive list are missing out on the love. I'm wanting some domestic situations, so inspiration is welcome!


	9. Sunday Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew gets a chance to relax, kick back, and have some fun.

Sunday Fun

Clint shivered shook his head as he stepped out into the cool early morning air, light just touching the horizon, jogging in place for a moment before setting out. As he passed Bobby’s place, Sam was closing the gate. The taller man easily fell into place besides him.  
“Hey man, you out for a morning run too?”  
“Yeah, a little late today though, Tony almost blew the lab up last night and needed a hand this morning.”  
“What the hell did he do?”  
“Your guess is as good as mine.”   
They laughed and jogged on in silence for a few minutes. Clint picked up the pace a bit when they went up the big hill. Sitting in a plane all day was great, but after two weeks of work it was doing him no favors in the fitness department.  
“Man, I’m losing my edge here. I’m going to go soft with all of this ‘real life’ shtick.”   
Sam chuckled ruefully, breathing a little more heavily than normal because of the steep incline as well.   
“Yeah, same here. I need a gym membership or something.”  
“We’ve got a gym at the Tower. I’ll tell Tony to program Jarvis to let you in.”  
“That would be great, thanks.” Sam said, waving when Clint veered onto another path, heading back to the tower. Sam continued on a little longer before heading back himself to hit the books. His homework wouldn’t do itself.   
…  
“Thanks for the offer, Steve, but I have enough on my plate dealing with Loki and Gabriel, and don’t really feel like going to church this week.” Fury patted the captain on the shoulder as he took his dirty plate to the sink.   
Steve had decided that he wanted to make going to church a part of his “normal life” experience. He didn’t mind going alone; he’d actually only asked Fury after the other man had inquired after his plans for the day. He decided to take the bus since Tony was either in his lab or sleeping, it was only eight thirty after all. It was a beautiful fall morning, even if it was a little nippy, and he enjoyed taking in the sites as he rode into town.  
“Good morning, Steve.”   
The blond jumped, smacking his head against the side of the window he’d been so intently staring out of. Castiel sat in the previously empty seat next to him, looking around at the other passengers with disinterest.  
“Hello, Castiel.” Steve wasn’t sure what to make of his presence, though he was too polite to question him. The angel was not the most social person on the block, maybe because he was just as lost culturally as Steve was most of the time.  
“Sam said he heard you were going to church, do you mind if I accompany you?” Castiel was characteristically blunt.  
“No, I don’t mind at all.”  
“Thank you. Gabriel says our Father never listens and going to church is a waste of time, but I disagree.” Castiel looked troubled by this.   
“Yeah, a lot of people think like that. It’s strange; before, most people at least believed in God, even if they didn’t go to church. Now a lot of people don’t even believe He exists.”   
Steve frowned, remembering a discussion he’d had with Tony and Bruce the week before about the existence of God and angels. He respected their beliefs, and didn’t feel like he needed to change them, but it was just another thing that was different from the world before his time on ice. Now, he was on a superhero team with a god from another world and lived next door to two angels and a demon. Life was full of surprises.   
They ended up stopping at a Presbyterian church with large, gorgeous stained glass windows that made Steve’s fingers itch for his sketch pad. The service was peaceful and very similar to the ones he’d attended as a boy. Castiel was a quiet companion until the sermon started, when his dry comments on Isaiah had Steve chuckling.  
…  
“And then I put a knife through his hand, pinning him to the wall, before grabbing the tablet and slipping out the door. Clint had already taken out the guards there.” Natasha glanced fondly at the archer at her feet as she relaxed in the comfortable recliner.   
He nodded but didn’t look up from his task of applying scarlet nail polish to her toes, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated.   
“Did the tablet have the information you needed?” Amy asked as she lounged on the couch, enraptured with the assassin’s tale as her husband labored over her toes with a dark purple polish.   
“Yeah, and then some.” Clint answered.  
“It led to our next mission, in Venice.” Natasha held up two bottles of color, eyes narrowing critically.  
“Use the pink one.” Amy directed.  
“The cream would be less noticeable.”   
“Yeah, but the pink is subtle, more of a blush, and it’s prettier.” Amy held out her hand for the neutral shade and nodded her approval when Natasha handed it to her.   
“I’ve been to Venice, fought off vampire fish from space.” Rory interjected, earning a thumbs-up from Clint.   
“But you didn’t have the ugly vampire fish prince hitting on you and trying to drink you dry.” Amy rolled her eyes at her husband fondly.  
“Awesome. Our mission wasn’t as exciting, huh ‘Tasha?”   
“No, though we did have a sunset dinner.”  
“You got to have the sunset dinner; I was off chasing Mafia goons in the damp back alleys.”   
Their lighthearted banter was cut off when Tony entered the room, plate of pizza in one hand and drink in the other. Being Tony, he couldn’t just walk in, or out, quietly.  
“Is that nail polish in your hands, Clint?” He asked, incredulously.   
“No, it’s the blood of my enemies.” Natasha snarked, a fierce smile growing on her lips.   
Tony’s eyes widened and then he barked out a laugh before settling into one of the recliners in front of the tv.   
“You poor browbeaten men. What color are your toe nails? Pansy pink?”  
“Watch it; you might wake up with pink paint on your nails.” Amy warned.   
“I’m secure in my manliness, Stark. Besides, it’s not like you’ve never had a manicure.” Clint said before gently blowing on Natasha’s red toes.   
“Take notes, Stark, I know for a fact that Pepper wouldn’t mind having her nails painted.” Natasha said, causing Tony to shudder theatrically.  
“That’s what manicurists are for.” He shot back, making Amy roll her eyes.   
Thor’s entrance was just as explosive as Tony’s, though he wasn’t critical about the nail polish. He happily sprawled out on the end of the large couch, pile of pizza in front of him, excited about watching football with Tony. He had Loki in tow, and the other Asgardian was much less enthusiastic as he grudgingly took a place between Rory and Thor on the couch. Loki distracted himself by rifling through the colorful bottles spread out on the coffee table while Tony and Clint gave the Asgardians and the Brits a rough run-through of the rules of the game. Thor was quick to catch on, and Rory was already pretty familiar with it.   
The room quickly became noisy and the girls let their boys put the nail polish aside as more pizza and beer was brought in as some of the others joined the fun. Only Loki was quiet, sullenly painting his fingernails black.   
Dean was the last straggler to the steady stream of people at the impromptu football watching party, arriving a half hour after the game had actually ended. Since Tony’s team had lost he’d decided to reenact the game on his Xbox.   
“Hey man, you missed a good game.” Clint called from his spot on the couch.  
“Yeah, got caught up at work.” He grabbed a beer and one of the few remaining slices of pizza before settling down to watch Tony and Amy duel it out on the Xbox.   
“What occupation have you chosen, friend Dean?” Thor asked, genuinely curious.   
“I found a job as a mechanic, fixing cars.” Dean replied.  
“He’s really good at it,” Sam chimed in, “You should see what he’s done to the Impala.”   
“Yeah, I wish my new boss shared your opinion, Sammy.”  
Clint’s admiration for Dean’s car was cut off by a wail of frustration from Amy as she lost. No one was surprised, and a scramble for the controllers ensued. Sam and Clint emerged victorious, and Tony found himself kicked out of his chair, controller plucked from his hands. He beat a hasty retreat when Natasha advanced with a bottle of pink polish, locking himself in his lab for safety.  
“Dummy, get the rubbing alcohol ready!” he muttered from underneath a pile of metal a while later when he heard a knock on the glass above the strains of his glorious rock music.  
“Sir, Dean Winchester would like to come in.” Jarvis chimed in his smooth mechanical voice.  
“Sure.” Tony pushed himself out from under the mess of metal and wires. Pulling his safety mask off only served to make him look like a reverse raccoon, thanks to the grease.   
“Hey. What’s up?”  
“Wow. This is like the bat cave, minus the doom and gloom. It’s awesome.” Dean carefully glanced over Tony’s main workshop, admiring the wall of Iron Man armor. He’d been duly impressed with Stark’s secondary workshop when they’d worked on the laser tag stuff, but this room was a mechanic’s heaven.  
“Glad you like it. It’s my special place. I spend most of my time here, Pepper hates it.”   
“That’s your girlfriend, right?”   
“Yeah.” Tony replied, growing quiet as he thought of Pepper, and how worried his favorite red head would be over his disappearance. He shook his head and turned back to Dean.  
“Hey, you had perfect timing, I was just about to find Bruce or Steve and ask them to help me. I’m trying to solder this engine back together, but I need someone to hold this casing piece in place. Dummy keeps moving it at the wrong second.” Tony tapped a large sheet of metal.  
“Yeah, sure. I just came to see if I could borrow a tool, but I’ve got time to kill. Want me to hold it, or solder?”  
Working together, it didn’t take long before the pile of twisted metal and wires resembled a generator. With a push of a button the machine was working, with a triangle on top pulsing with energy to match the device in Tony’s chest.  
“You’re actually really good at this.” Tony turned to Dean in surprise.   
“Yeah, well, I’ve had some practice here and there. What’s this chunk of bolts supposed to do?” Dean replied, wiping his hands with a greasy rag.   
“It’s a self-sustaining generator, has enough power to fuel an entire neighborhood for a year.”   
“Wow. That’s pretty incredible. What are you going to do with it?”  
“This version of Earth has an empty marked when it comes to clean energy. On my Earth, I was the face of clean energy, through my company, Stark Industries. The nut job who put us here insisted we get jobs, so here’s mine. Welcome to Stark Industries 2.0.”  
Dean nodded, impressed again. “Cool.”  
“I have a board meeting with an energy company in two days. I could use a partner, someone who can help me build these and work with people. Want in?”   
“What the hell. Sounds awesome.”   
Greasy handshakes were exchanged to seal the deal.  
…  
“So, this is Tumblr. Tony mentioned this site the other day.” Steve said, motioning towards the laptop screen.   
“Ah, he loves this site.” Bruce chuckled peeking around Tosh’s shoulder to the laptop balanced on the TARDIS console’s rail.   
“Eh, too many fangirls. You humans and your social networks.” The Doctor shook his head before ducking back under the console with a new tool.   
“Who doesn’t? Cat gifs and all the fandoms, what’s not to love?” Tosh said.  
“Gifts?” Steve looked confused.  
“No, gif, G, I, F, stands for ___.” Bruce ignored the Doctor and Tosh’s banter.  
“That is a gif.” Tosh pointed to a gif of a cat chasing a laser pointer.  
“It looks like a video to me.” Steve said with a puzzled frown.  
“Well, you’re not wrong. It is part of a video, and it loops continually.” Bruce explained.  
“Huh. I still like deviant art the best.” Despite his words, Steve was pretty entranced with the site.  
“Oh, this site has art too.” Tosh quickly typed in a few key words that had the super soldier happy.  
“Personally, I like imgur.”   
“Bruce, you can’t be serious…” Tosh began.  
“Oi, Tosh, I thought you wanted to see the internal temporal couplers?”   
The Doctor’s complaint prompted Tosh to push the laptop aside and head for the stairs, with Bruce hot on her tail. Steve simply shrugged and proceeded to test out some of his newly acquired technological knowledge to set up a tumblr account, linking the art he’d already posted online to the new social network.   
…  
“Mmmm.” Crowley murmured appreciatively as he held a glass of amber liquid up to the light, “You brought the good stuff.”   
“Care of Tony Stark. For a recovering alcoholic, he sure has a lot of this in the Tower.” Fury replied from his spot in the deep leather chair in the corner of Bobby’s study, feet stretched out in front of him, a worn copy of War and Peace in his hands.   
“If he’s got this, he’s not recovering.” Bobby chimed in from behind a volume of ancient Norse charms and wards, a half empty glass at his side.  
“I will gladly take one for the team and drink all of it to save him from the temptation.” Crowley poured himself another before moving to read over Bobby’s shoulder. “That’s not going to work against Loki. Try the one on page 160 instead.”   
Bobby sighed and started flipping pages. Crowley left in a cloud of black smoke, leaving an almost empty bottle behind.   
“Demonic git.” Bobby mumbled.   
Fury chuckled. “At least he’s willing to help.”  
“For now. He always has an angle; he didn’t get to where he is by being nice.”  
“I can work with that.”   
“Yeah, well I have to live with it, like a pain in the neck.”   
“Oi! I heard that, and I resemble that remark.” Crowley called from the basement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, This is a little bit shorter, and I realized after I finished that it's VERY Tony Stark centric. So, if you're reading this and plan on reading more, and I'm not featuring your favorite character, let me know! Ideas are always welcome!


	10. Monday Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam makes a deal, and Sherlock and Loki team up.

“Hey, Crowley.” Sam said, shuffling his feet as he approached the demon, who was relaxed on the couch, glass of amber liquid in hand, a runway fashion show blaring in the background.   
“Moose.” The King of Hell did not look away from the tube.   
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”  
“You’re talking now, aren’t you?” Crowley looked up at him, cheeky grin stretching across his face, “Might as well get it all out.”  
“I need your help with one of my law class assignments.” Sam blurted out with gritted teeth.   
“What?! Sam Winchester coming to little old me for help? This I need to hear.” Crowley laughed, gesturing for Sam to sit down. The Winchester sighed dramatically, rolling his eyes and sending him a classic bitch face before taking a seat in the lazyboy on the other side of the small living room.   
“I’m supposed to shadow a lawyer for a week as a class assignment. We were given a list of law firms, and the one you just got a job from is on it. Pearson Hardman is actually one of the best ones around, but they’re pretty exclusive with Harvard. I tried one of the other firms, but they said they’d already gotten a bunch of requests from other students so they were looking at resumes to determine who they let shadow their lawyers. They turned me down. Most of my classmates already have set assignments now and I need to get this done.”  
“When’s your project due?”  
“I need to have a twenty page report in two and a half weeks. At this point, I’m willing to shadow just about any lawyer.”   
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. But you’ll owe me.”   
Sam groaned at the sharky grin on Crowley’s face. He really hadn’t wanted to ask him for help.  
“Yeah, but this doesn’t mean you own my soul or anything, alright. It’s just a simple, human favor. I’ll get you some beer or something in return.”   
“I know a thing or two about favors, Sam. If I do you a favor, you owe me a favor, not a case of shitty beer. Favors are currency, I’ll cash mine is when and where I please.”  
Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Crowley cut him off.  
“I know, I know, no murder or anything illegal. Now go on, I’m sure you have plenty of homework. And get a haircut while you’re at it.”  
“No, I’m not cutting my hair.” Sam sent him another bitch face before skulking off. It was only Monday and already his week was going down the drain.

…  
“Sherlock, you have got to stop using the coffee filters in your experiments. We’re out and now I can’t make coffee!”   
Sherlock ignored his flat mate, instead he focused on the newspaper in his hands as he perched on top of his chair, cup of tea balanced precariously on his knee. He was scanning the adverts section for possible criminals to track down. Unfortunately, nothing looked very promising. Normally, that would bother him, but his day was already booked. His sipped his tea and half listened to John’s rants about his new coworkers. They were unorthodox, opinionated, and very good at their jobs. John obviously enjoyed his new position as surgeon at the Princeton Plainsburrow Hospital, despite his moaning and groaning. Sherlock was still miffed that John wasn’t always available to go crime solving and deducing with him.   
“And for pities sake, Sherlock, do the shopping. We’re out of milk, again.” John admonished before swiping up his keys, shrugging on his jacket, and sweeping out the door, letting in the sound of Owen blaring the Torchwood SUV’s horn.   
As soon as the door slammed behind him, Sherlock was on his feet, modified Stark phone in hand, fingers flying over the keys. He had barely pressed the “send” button when Loki materialized in his living room.  
“I thought you’d never ask.” the god of mischief complained, poking at a stack of books on the table with middling interest.   
“You could have come earlier; John knows how to keep a secret.” Sherlock said coldly.  
“It’s my secret, and my prerogative to decide who I choose to share it with.”   
“I’m still at a loss as to why you need to keep this a secret.” Sherlock poured another cup of tea before sitting down in front of the laptop.  
“I’m a god. I do what I want.” Loki sneered before pulling up a chair.  
“So I’ve heard.” Sherlock remained unimpressed.  
He opened a web browser, but stopped, fingers poised above the keys as he noticed Loki’s eyes zero in on the screen. He’d seen that look on the god before, after he’d made an exceptionally good move on the chess board, surprising Loki and gaining his full attention. Sherlock sent the other man a questioning glance.   
“You don’t know how to use computers.” It was a statement, not a question, and Loki shifted uncomfortably before defensively glaring at him.  
“I know more magic than you could ever comprehend, mortal. Your science is a mere lower form of magic, and I’ll master it.”   
“Well, to begin with, this is the internet. It’s a network, stores information, metadata. Web sites and web pages have URL’s, or addresses. Search engines, like this one, find information related to your search terms, showing the most relevant information first. Like this.” Sherlock typed in his search term and clicked enter.  
“Ah, the first one. That looks right.” Loki pointed to the screen.  
“It’s called a link.” Sherlock clicked it.  
“Like a portal.” Loki grinned in satisfaction.   
The website was the homepage for a New New York apartment complex, more specifically the complex where Loki’s new boss, Sherina, lived. Sherlock pulled out his phone and dialed the main office’s number.  
“Hello, yes. This is Joe from OneUp Plumbers. No, no, I’m calling about Mrs. Sherina William’s unit. I have an appointment to check her pipes but I can’t seem to find her unit number in our records and the office wrote down the wrong phone number. Susan, the secretary, is rather new. I see. Who could I talk to then, because when she spoke with my manager she said it was an emergency? He only squeezed her in because she was able to help his son find a dog, a lovely cocker spaniel mix. I would hate to disappoint. Bless. Got it, thank you.”   
Sherlock shut the phone with a satisfying click, the contrived smile slipping off of his face in an instant as he turned back to Loki.   
“She’s in apartment 349.” Sherlock stood and grabbed his coat and scarf. Loki’s hand on his wrist stopped him from opening the flat door.  
“My turn now.” The god of mischief smiled and Sherlock felt the world dissolving around him. In the next moment he found himself back on solid ground in the early morning sunshine next to an apartment complex, with Loki’s grip on his arm the only thing holding him up. He most certainly did not lurch when Loki let go.   
“Are you coming or not?” Loki smirked back at him.  
“Next time give me some warning.” Sherlock shook his head before following him up the stairs, gripping the railing with white knuckles. Teleportation was disorienting if you weren’t ready for it, especially if it was for the first time. He scowled at the Asgardian as he joined him at the top of the stairs.  
“Count yourself warned.”   
Loki didn’t give Sherlock a chance to use his lock picking kit on the shiny new lock before teleporting them into the apartment’s living room. This time Sherlock barely stumbled. The room was empty, as was the rest of the apartment, Sherlock decided after listening for a moment. It was, however, a mess. Drawers were pulled out, her tv and dvd player were missing, and sofa cushions were overturned. The burglars had definitely been looking for something. Thankfully the police hadn’t disturbed the evidence too much.   
A look into the bedroom proved what Loki had said over the phone earlier that morning, Sharina had been in the apartment when it happened and had been injured. With a snap of disposable gloves, Sherlock went to work.  
…  
The Doctor closed his eyes, a smile on his lips. He decided that he liked Tuesdays. Because if he squinted and tried very hard not to think about it, things almost felt normal. The kettle was whistling (he really ought to open his eyes and take care of that), his roast was almost done cooking, and Amy and Rory were laughing as they took a break from setting the table to have a snog. Ugh.   
“Are you going to get that or do I have to do everything myself?” Amy twirled past him to pluck the kettle off of the stove.   
“No, no, I’ve got it, sorry, just daydreaming.” He rushed forward and to take the pot from Amy, fussing at her when she wouldn’t relinquish it.   
“Are you alright, Doctor?” Rory asked his voice gentle with concern.  
“Yes. I’m just fine.”  
“I don’t think ‘just fine’ means the same in Gallifreyan as it does in English.” Amy said, setting a steaming mug of tea into his hands.   
He opened his mouth to offer a witty retort when they were interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on the front door.  
“Huh, that’s weird. We’re able to her that all the way in here.” Rory arched an eyebrow.  
“It’s the TARDIS, she’s rerouting the sound.” The Doctor patted the wall fondly. “I’ll go get it.”   
He left Amy to pull the food out of the oven, straightening his bowtie as he headed down the hall. He had a good idea of who was at the door. The TARDIS was letting out waves of happy excitement. She’d made a friend out of one of their new neighbors, Bruce Banner, the quiet scientist who could apparently turn into a “green rage monster.” Banner had expressed his open astonishment and admiration when first entering the TARDIS and was able to keep up with some of the science. He’d been over frequently with Jack’s Tosh, helping him try to break Q’s control of the old girl, and continued to express his admiration for the machine, speaking to her and gently stroking the console at times. The Doctor was beginning to feel at bit jealous of how responsive the TARDIS was becoming to Bruce. Her little crush was annoying.  
Sure enough, it was Dr. Banner at the door.   
“Hello, Bruce. Do come in.” The Doctor forgot his pique as Banner smiled up at him, stack of books in his arms.  
“Hi, thanks.” Bruce said, patting the TARDIS console as they passed it.   
“Dinner’s just on, are you hungry?” The Doctor led the way towards the delicious smell.  
“No, thanks, I just came to return the books.”  
“Bruce, hi!” Rory said enthusiastically as they entered the kitchen.  
“Hi! Let me get you a plate.” Amy chimed in, rising to make him a place.   
“No, no, that’s alright, I already ate, I don’t want to disturb you.”  
“It’s not a disturbance at all. Here, at least have some tea.” Amy forcibly took his books and with a shake of his head, Bruce joined them.   
“Thank you.” He really did enjoy spending time in the TARDIS. No one treated him like china that might explode if it wasn’t handled gently, and the conversation was always fun and thought provoking. He wasn’t disappointed as the Doctor regaled them with a story about visiting an old Egyptian pyramid and fighting of Set with his friend Sarah. After dinner he was convinced to put on an apron and pitch in with the cleaning, and found himself up to his elbow in bright pink alien soap bubbles. He left the ticklish suds with a laugh as the Doctor picked up his books and motioned for him to follow. Amy and Rory barely noticed as they were so wrapped up in each other. Newlyweds, ugh. 

…  
Coming to Sherlock Holmes for help had been a brilliant idea, Loki decided. On being dropped off at work by Clint he’d found the small building in an uproar because Sherina was in the hospital after a violent burglary of her apartment. He had considered leaving the matter, but after a few cleaned cat cages it came to light that the assault was likely performed by the gang members who had gotten his bosses dear son killed. Sherina had been kind to him in the past two weeks he’d worked at the animal shelter. As he cleaned the next cage, he had an odd stirring of possessiveness that he tried to ignore. By the time he got to the eighth cage, pulling out the small orange occupant, he’d decided that Sherina had suffered enough from this thuggish gang and they needed to pay for what they’d done. The other workers had moaned about the police’s inability to catch the gang leaders or pin any hard evidence on them, so justice wasn’t likely to come from that corner. Pulling out his Stark phone, he texted Sherlock, asking if the other man would like to play chase, swearing him to secrecy when the detective asked for more details. Slipping out of work was easy without Sherina around.   
Now they were quietly slipping down a dirty side street in a rough part of the large town. Sherlock had easily been able to get a trace on the gang, and they’d spent the day digging up dirt on the gang’s major members and lieutenants, feeding them to the police one by one. Loki had to admit it was quite a bit of fun. Sherlock was unapologetically exuberant, working the operation like a fine boxer, dancing around his opponent, landing punch after vital punch. The detective had an impressive intellect and let nothing slip by unnoticed. Everything had meaning, and Sherlock was able to pick through the mess of humanity to the threads associated with the gang. Loki was impressed.   
As the late afternoon sun sent shafts of golden light down the dank alley, they prepared to go for the jugular.   
“Hey, Marco, look what wandered into our side of the neighborhood.” A cocky young man with an unpleasant smirk said to his companion as the two rounded the corner.   
“Can we help you?” the other thug spat at them.  
Loki rolled his eyes as he noticed that the young man’s companion, a slightly older, muscular thug, had the same pretentious swagger in his step. The two stood side by side, blocking the entrance to the alley, and more importantly, the door beyond where more men loitered. They probably thought they looked intimidating, he mused.  
“Yes. I’m looking for Dale Cook, and his lieutenants, Harold Wallis and Michael Allen.”   
Loki smiled when the men’s expressions stiffened. Sherlock shifted impatiently next to him.   
“What you want with the Big D?” the younger man asked, puffing himself up even more, if that were possible.  
“I’m here because Wallis and Allen burgled and beat a harmless, defenseless older lady.” Cold green eyes made the men hesitate.  
“And I’m here because the police are just about to get George Manning, or Street Rat, if you insist on using your tired and unimaginative street parlance, to talk, and I’d like to make sure that ‘Big D’ doesn’t make a run for it.” Sherlock chimed in, with a fake smile plastered on.  
The moment they’d turned the corner he’d noted the positions of the men in the background, their weapons and weaknesses, and five ways to get out of the alley as well as three ways to get into the building holding the wanted criminals. He’d already sent an untraceable text to the police department, tipping them in on the boss’s location. However, he was confident that Manning was spilling everything already.   
He was on the balls of his feet, ready to leap, when Loki beat him to the punch.  
“I’m tired of playing, let’s get them.” Loki said calmly. In the same moment a quick, calm flip of his wrist made a staff appeared in the god’s hand and he had the thugs in front of him flying backwards, the others scrambling to their feet and drawing their weapons with angry yells. Loki simply grinned and duplicated himself, attacking all of them at once.   
Dodging blows and returning kicks, Sherlock moved through the cramped, dirty space and onto a crumbling pile of boxes beneath what was obviously a bathroom window. With a toss of a brick the glass broke, and he swung a long leg over the sill. He’d made Loki promise he wouldn’t kill anyone at the beginning of their venture and he had no wish to stick around and see if the god kept his word. Instead, he wanted to make sure none of the crooks, or at least the important ones, escaped.   
Sherlock waited inside the bathroom door as four pairs of angry, thudding feet stomped past to join the brawl outside before slipping into the tight hallway and into the main room. He was greeted by the backs of three of the men in question as they made for the front door; the rear two holding guns were presumably Wallis and Allen, and the first had “Big D” tattooed across his thick neck in a chunky gothic script.   
A strong blow to the last thug’s right elbow and head with the brick from the alley had him in an unconscious heap in the doorway. A wail of sirens from the street had Cook cursing up a storm at Allen as the other thug abandoned him, sprinting up the street in the opposite direction, letting out a few random shots at the cops filling the streets. Sherlock dodged them as he did the other obstacles as a tall blonde supersoldier policeman wrestled Cook to the ground. Turning the corner after the fleeing gang man, Sherlock saw Loki materialize next to Wallis. Seconds later he was by Sherlock’s side, matching him stride for stride as they gained on Allen, who jumped some bushes into an apartment complex, landing with a thud before rolling to his knees. Loki blinked out of existence and with a sigh Sherlock vaulted over the shrubbery.   
The sight awaiting him was an amusing one. Allen was panting hard, gun pointed at a feral, snarling Loki.   
“Beating up women is unmanly.”   
Without warning, a second Loki materialized behind the man, grabbing his weapon as the first Loki swept his feet out from under him. As Allen fell, the duplicate gave his head a solid crack with the pistol. Allen was out cold. The duplicate disappeared. Triumphantly, with a glint in his eye that dared Sherlock to protest or comment, Loki dropped the weapon and declared him vanquished. Thankfully, Allen was still breathing.   
A shattering glass reminded both men of their surroundings. They, or rather Loki, had just taken down an armed gunman in someone’s backyard, or several someone’s as the apartment building indicated. They had startled two women who were relaxing on their first floor porch, drinks in hand. The younger curvy, dark haired one had dropped her glass.  
“Loki?!” She shrieked.  
Her companion stood, ready to flee. Apparently, the two were familiar with the god of mischief and chaos. The younger one did not show signs of fear; instead, she pushed through the porch door and stalked up to the smug Asgardian, fists balled at her sides.  
“I knew you were behind this! Take us home, right now!”  
Loki simply laughed. “You’re fiery for a Midgardian. Who are you?”  
The girl simply glared.  
“She’s from your world.” Sherlock said.  
“So I gathered.” Loki calmly replied.  
“I’m Sherlock Holmes.” He stepped forward with another of his “reassuring smiles” plastered on. She simply stared at him before crossing her arms above an ample chest.  
“This isn’t funny.”  
“Darcy, come back in, I’m going to lock the door.” the other woman called from inside the building.  
“Locks won’t keep me out. If you’re Darcy, she must be Jane, Thor’s lover.” Loki sneered down at her.   
The sounds in the street behind the shrubbery became louder, and they could hear a muffled cry of “They went this way,” from Steve. Loki and Sherlock shared a look, and the detective stepped forward, grabbing Loki’s wrist with one hand and Loki’s arm with the other. In a second they appeared in a messy, tiny apartment next to a screaming Jane. Loki grabbed her around the waist and the four disappeared again, next appearing in the middle of Loki and Thor’s spacious living room. Loki dropped the struggling Jane, who was still shouting empty threats, and an out of breath, dizzy Darcy grabbed Sherlock’s coat lapels, struggling to stay upright. He played his part as a gentleman and steadied her before steering her to a seat on the couch.  
Sherlock looked up as Thor burst through from the backyard, clad in his swimming trunks and streaming water. His worried expression dissolved into a smile as he spotted Jane.   
“Thor?!” Jane exclaimed, eyes opening wide. She had barely taken two steps towards him before she was enveloped in a large, wet hug, which she happily returned.   
Loki simply scowled at the pair, turning away when the hug turned into a kiss.  
“So, anyone care to tell me what’s going on?” Darcy asked, looking rather nonplussed now that the world wasn’t spinning.   
“Darcy!” Thor boomed, his smile growing as he tucked a now damp Jane under his arm.  
“I’m not the one who brought you here.” Loki growled.  
“Indeed! We, and our world saving neighbors, were brought her by another trickster.” Thor chimed in.  
“Q.” Sherlock replied to her raised eyebrow.  
Darcy’s mouth turned into an “o” of surprise as Jane looked at him quizzically.   
“So you really are Sherlock Holmes?” she asked.  
“Yes.”  
“Cool.” Darcy smiled up at him and was about to bombard him with fifty questions when Fury stormed in.  
“Loki! I have been looking all over town for you. You are not allowed to leave work like that! Would you care to explain why I just got a call from Steve saying he thinks he spotted you at a gang bust? And how did Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis get here?” Fury growled, hands on his hips.  
“I do what I want.” The god said sullenly before stalking out to the poolside, magicing himself into some swimming trunks as he went.  
“Holmes? Please shed some light onto this situation. Steve mentioned your name as well.” Fury turned his one eyed glare onto the detective.  
“He was with me, helping me on a case. The police captured the gang, we ran into these ladies, realized they didn’t belong here, and decided to bring them here.” Sherlock glared right back at him, daring him to question his story.  
“Is that the TARDIS?” Darcy asked excitedly from the front door.  
Sherlock smirked as Fury buried his head in his hands.


	11. Sweet be Your Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has trouble sleeping. He gets a little help from his friends. 
> 
> This is a little bit crazy time wise, so just slot it in wherever you like. Think of it as an interlude while the rest of the next chapter stops ignoring me and tells me what happens.

“Sir?” Jarvis’ mechanical voice rings softly in the quiet room. Bruce sat at a large metal desk surrounded by book shelves, grading a large stack of papers.  
“Yeah, what’s up?” Bruce asked in surprise, glancing at the clock on the far side of his desk which blinked a red 2:30 AM.  
“It’s Tony, sir. He has not had adequate sleep for 62 hours and insists on using the power tools despite having lost him better judgment three hours ago.”  
“Three hours ago? Out of sixty two? Shit.” Bruce ran a hand across his face, both alarmed and exasperated. “Where is he?”   
“He is in the R and D lab, attempting to use the welder on Marc 12, sir.”   
“Thanks, Jarvis.” With a sigh Bruce capped his pen and headed for the lab.  
“No, thank you, sir.” Jarvis voice chimed before going silent.  
Keying his way into the lab, Bruce braced himself for a scene. Tony stood at the welding table, expertly tinkering with the insides of a metal knee, heavy metal music blaring in the background. He was humming along halfheartedly, terribly off key. The other scientist moved in his direction, stopping briefly at Tony’s desk to watch the five different silent video feeds of armor tests. None of them had gone particularly well, and all were date stamped with little number AM’s.   
“Hey, what brings you down here?” Tony asked, finally noticing him, flipping up his welding mask with a friendly smile.  
“I should ask the same of you, Tony. It’s almost three in the morning.” Bruce raised an eyebrow.   
“Yeah, well, I’m an adult; I don’t need a bed time.” Tony crossed his arms with a frown.  
“You do when you’ve been awake for more than 62 hours.”   
Tony’s hands flew up in exasperation, and he shot a dirty look at the ceiling.  
“Jarvis, I told you I didn’t need an intervention, I’m fine!”  
“There are variable definitions of fine, sir.” The reply was meek.  
“Tony, you’re not a machine, you need sleep.” Bruce pleaded.  
“Well, I’m busy.”  
“Making another suit.” Bruce shook his head.  
“It’s sort of a hobby now.” Tony tried a charming smile. “Everybody needs a hobby. Even Fury has one, keeping secrets and all. The Doctor saves worlds. Dean hunts monsters. Sherlock solves cases. Thor drinks and swings his hammer and woos all the pretty girls. Hey, I think I like his hobby. But I promised Pepper, so I’m sticking to the suits. As hobbies go, it’s pretty awesome; I mean it beats golf, or making those little models with that god awful glue.”  
“Tony, go to bed.” Bruce’s voice was firm.  
“Not tired.” Tony’s expression was infinitely stubborn.  
“So help me, I’ll carry you there if I have to.”  
“You know, it’s usually the ladies trying to get me in the sack. I didn’t know you swung that way, Tosh will be disappointed.”  
Bruce buried his head in his hands and took a deep careful breath. He wasn’t angry, and was in no danger of Hulking out, he just felt ready to strangle his smooth talking friend. Tony seemed to realize this, as he simply turned around and picked the welding tool back up, not at all afraid for his safety. Bruce calmly marched over to the wall and unplugged the tool.   
Tony spluttered behind the welding mask.  
“Bruce!”   
“Bed, now.”  
Tony threw off the mask and walked to his desk, after ordering Jarvis to turn off the music.  
“You don’t understand. I can’t sleep.” He sunk onto the hard metal surface.  
“After 62 hours, I’m pretty sure you can.”   
“No, whenever I try to sleep I have nightmares, Bruce. Doesn’t it bother you, all the stuff we saw in New York?”  
“I guess so, yeah.”  
“Come on, gods, monsters, aliens, all those things out there that want to eat us. How could you possibly sleep?”  
“I’ve kind of gotten used to the whole monster thing, Tony.”   
“Yeah, well, I haven’t. So I build my suits for when the next threat comes. Now here it is, in the form of Q, and I’m absolutely defenseless.” He sighed in defeat, settling his head into his hands.  
“Tony, you’re anything but defenseless. You’re one of the smartest minds on earth, and there’s no way Q can compete with that. In the meantime, you need to keep rested and healthy, and leave it to me and Fury to make sure you’re safe. Hulk saved your ass once, he can do it again. Now come on, bed time.”  
Tony frowned up at him before meekly following him out of the lab, the dark circles under his eyes finally getting to him. In the elevator Bruce caught him as he stumbled, holding him upright despite his protests. With a sigh, Bruce guided the tired scientist to his room and into the large bed, under the red silk sheets. Tony made a halfhearted effort to tug his shoes off, but Bruce beat him to it, tossing them into a dark corner of the room. He turned to go, but found Tony’s hand gripping his shirt. With a sigh he sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the sleepy genius, who acted less than half his age on his best days.   
“I don’t want nightmares, Bruce.” Scared brown eyes looked up at him.  
“Sleep. I’ll stay for a while.” Toeing off his own shoes, Bruce slipped under the sheets when Tony slid over.  
This was not how he’d planned to spend his night.   
Despite their best intentions, both scientists were asleep within minutes. An hour or so later, Bruce woke when Tony started thrashing around in his sleep, but quiet words and a soft, strong arm around his middle calmed the other man.   
When Bruce woke again, it was to the sound of classical music; Jarvis recreating his usual alarm so he wouldn’t be late for his ten o’clock class. He looked around in confusion for a moment before remembering where he was, sighing when Tony cracked open a brown eye.   
“How’d you get here? How’d I get here? Oh.” Bruce could see the memories return. Tony frowned, and then smiled.  
“Well, I usually wake up next to prettier faces.”  
“Let’s not make this a habit.” Bruce replied dryly, before extricating himself from the sheets, pushing Tony’s legs off his own. Time to make the walk of shame, however undeserved it might be. He was halfway out the door when Tony spoke up.  
“Bruce.”  
He turned, eyebrow raised.  
“Thanks, that’s the most sleep I’ve gotten in a while.”  
“You’re welcome Tony. Now go back to sleep.”  
“Yes, honey.”  
…  
“Sir, it has been thirty hours, like you asked.” Jarvis said.  
“Thanks. Where is he?” Bruce asked, glancing towards the ceiling.   
“In the energy lab with Dean. They will need another two hours, and then I would suggest an intervention.”   
“Yeah. Give me a reminder then, ok?”   
“I most certainly will.”  
“Thanks.” Bruce sighed and pulled off his glasses.  
“What was that about?” Steve asked.   
They were both in the communal living room, Bruce with a thick book on physics, and Steve with his sketch book and colored pencils, capturing the sunset.   
“Oh, I asked Jarvis to let me know when Tony went for more than thirty hours without at least four hours of sleep.”  
“He’s been awake that long?” Steve said, alarmed.  
“Well, he probably nodded off for a little while last night, but if he had bad dreams…”   
“That can’t be healthy.” Steve’s blue eyes were filled with concern.  
Bruce chuckled. “No, not really.”  
They sat in silence for a moment, their books and pencils forgotten as they thought of their friend.  
“So this isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?” The question was more of a statement.  
Bruce glanced at and then away from the searching blue eyes.   
“No. Jarvis called me for help last week when he went about three days without enough sleep. I took him to bed, calmed him down when the nightmares tried to wake him. I’ve been keeping an eye on him since.”   
“Let me help. We’re a team, and you look tired Bruce.”   
“No, no. I can handle it. It’s ok.” Bruce protested, suddenly realizing that Tony might not want the others to know about his sleep problems. He’d only found out because he was the only one awake for Jarvis to call on.  
“When’s the last time you slept, Doctor?” Steve tried.  
“Last night. All night.” Bruce smiled, failing to mention that “all night” referred to about four hours, due to grading and a good book.   
“Let me do this. I know what it’s like to lose sleep because of nightmares.”  
“Tony might not like it.”  
“Tough. We’re a team.” Steve smiled before looking to the ceiling, clearing his throat before addressing the AI. He always felt a little bit foolish and a little bit amazed when talking to Jarvis.  
“Uhm, Jarvis?”  
“Hello Captain, how can I be of assistance?”  
“Give me the reminder tonight instead of Bruce.”  
“Doctor Banner?” the AI asked, his voice questioning.  
“Yeah, and include Steve in the alerts from now on too.”  
“Yes sirs.”  
“Thanks.” Steve said a smile on his lips.  
“My pleasure, Captain. It’s nice to see him so well cared for by his friends.”  
“You do know what you’re signing up for here, right?” Bruce asked, smiling wryly.   
“Yeah, unfortunately I think I do.” Steve shook his head and returned to his sketchpad.

 

Three hours later found Steve striding with purpose towards Tony’s lab. He found the man pouring over energy readings on the computer console.  
“Oh hey, you just missed Dean and Cas, they left about ten minutes ago.”  
“That was a half hour ago, sir.” Jarvis corrected.  
“Whatever. Hey, would you mind helping me; I need another pair of hands to adjust the conductor.” Tony motioned towards one of the large glowing chunks of metal and wire in the middle of the room.  
“Can you put it off until tomorrow; it’s getting kind of late. Aren’t you feeling tired?” Steve asked, examining his face and frowning at the dark circles under his eyes.  
“Jarvis, I told you to keep my sleep schedule to yourself!” Tony exclaimed.  
“Sir, my main purpose is to keep you safe and healthy.” Jarvis said with confidence.  
“No, your main purpose is to keep me safe and happy. Don’t make me reprogram your subroutines.”  
“I cannot keep you happy if you are not healthy. You do not always make the safest decisions when you have not had sufficient sleep.”  
“He’s right, Tony. You need sleep. We all do.” Steve interjected.  
“Oh, you mean the serum doesn’t give you infinite energy reserves?” Tony snarked.  
“No. I have to sleep too. I had a hard time with it after I was pulled out of the ice, I was afraid I’d go to sleep and wake up in the next century again, or open my eyes to find myself stuck back in the ice. I didn’t know which was worse. And when I did sleep, I didn’t get much of it, thanks to the nightmares.”  
“So what made them stop?”  
Steve chuckled. “New York. The Avengers. Realizing that I wasn’t alone, there were others out there to watch my back.”  
“So that’s what you got out of our alien invasion?” Tony raised an eyebrow.  
Steve just shrugged. “I knew I wasn’t alone when I woke up because Fury and Shield were there, watching my every move. But the attack on New York, all of us banding together… I don’t know; it made me feel it. I knew with more than just my head that I had someone, several someone’s, who have my back.”  
“Huh.”  
“You don’t have to be alone, Tony. We’re all here for you.”  
Tony refused to look at him for a moment, fiddling with the nut in his hand. When he finally looked up, tossing the hardware over his shoulder, he had a serious expression.  
“Just one question, be honest.”  
“Sure.” Steve braced himself.  
“You don’t snore, do you?”  
Steve sighed in frustration, rolling his eyes.  
“Jarvis, does Cap snore?”  
“Not that I’m aware of sir.” The metal voce chuckled.  
“Good. I call dibs on the right side of the bed.” Tony stood with a smile, and Steve wondered what he had gotten himself into.  
The thought resurfaced the next morning when he woke up with Tony sprawled out over his chest, snoring away. After a moment’s thought he realized that he’d had an unusually sound night’s sleep, without the frequent dreams of cold and ice.   
…

With a rush of adrenaline, Bruce jolted awake. Eyes clenched tight he willed himself to calm down, the bottom sheet straining and coming loose from the bed in his close grip. Slowly the green drained out of his thoughts, replaced with the black quiet of his dimly lit bedroom.   
He breathed in, held it, and breathed out. In, hold, and out. In, hoooooold, out. He concentrated on breathing, on the stillness, trying to banish the dream. A cool sip of water, and he began the concentrated breathing again.  
He still couldn’t sleep. He could feel the Hulk inside, crashing through his field of dreams, wrecking chaos and confusion. But it wasn’t the Hulk. No, he was doing pretty well these days. It was his own fears, taking the familiar green tint.   
With a growl Bruce tumbled out of bed. After a quick trip to the bathroom he found himself in the hallway, making his way towards the elevator. His feet had acted without his minds permission. Jarvis did not question him as he pushed in the button for Tony’s floor. The AI’s presence was felt, however, when the lift’s chime did not go off and Tony’s door was unlocked for him.   
Padding through Tony’s living room and kitchen on quiet feet, Bruce found the bedroom door ajar. He hesitated in the doorway, suddenly rethinking this, since it hadn’t actually been thought out in the first place. Tony’s repulsor glowed faintly through the red silk sheet as the genius sprawled across the middle of the bed, one foot sticking out of the covers, arms wrapped firmly around Steve’s middle, head nestled on his chest. With a smile, Bruce made his way towards the empty space on the bed. Blue eyes blinked open and Steve frowned up at him with concern.  
“Bruce? Is everything alright?” The super soldier whispered.  
“Yeah, sorry to wake you.” Bruce mumbled, suddenly feeling foolish.  
“That’s all right. I’m a light sleeper.” Steve magnanimously replied as Bruce slipped under the covers. “There’s plenty of room since Tony decided to use me as a pillow.”  
Bruce chuckled. “Yeah, no light sleeping there.”   
Tony’s quiet snore punctuated his remark.   
“The only thing that wakes him is his nightmares.” Steve sighed.   
“He hasn’t had very many lately.” Bruce said, pulling a little bit more of the blanket away from Tony. He’d have to grab another one from the closet if they were going to keep making a habit out of this.   
“No. But I think it’s easier to keep them away when you have someone to hold onto.” Steve replied, voice quiet and deep.  
“You’re right. Goodnight, Steve.”   
“Sweet dreams, Bruce.”  
A few minutes later, as Bruce was finally crossing over that soft blurry threshold that divides awareness and sleep, a deep murmur of song swept him into a sweet darkness.  
 _Goodnight to you all and sweet be your sleep, may angels surround you, their silent watch keep. Goodnight to you all and sweet be your sleep, may angels surround you, their silent watch keep. Goodnight, goodnight, goodniiiiiiight, goodnight._

 

 

*BONUS SMUT*

The next night Bruce strong armed Tony into leaving his lab in favor of bed around 1 in the morning. They found Cap stretched out in Tony’s bed. He cracked a bright blue eye open when they entered and then grumbled a bit once they climbed in bed after using the bathroom and brushing their teeth. Tony grumbled right back at him, grappling with the one thick blanket. Bruce let up a long suffering sigh before asking Jarvis to raise the room temperature. He got two more blankets out of the hall closet before shedding his pants and crawling in besides Tony. After that, they fell into an easy habit of crowding into Tony’s bed almost every night.   
About three days later, they ran into a little bit of awkwardness. Steve was the first to wake. Unlike him, Bruce and Tony were night owls who found it hard to fall asleep when their heads hit the pillow, and needed a few minutes to orient themselves and fully wake up before rolling out of bed in the morning. The fit super soldier had no such problems. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow and ready to go the second his eyes opened in the morning. Steve enjoyed being a light sleeper, but it did have its downsides when sharing a bed with two other men. At that moment, he was feeling one of the downsides. Literally.  
“Tony.” He hissed, gently shoving the man’s head and shoulders off his chest.   
“Mlarg, Pepper, hrugn.” Tony mumbled, still firmly entrenched in dreamland, snuggling uncomfortably closer.   
“It’s Steve, Tony.” He shoved a little harder and Tony rolled off of him, brown eyes flying open in surprise.   
Tony half sat up, flailing around in alarm. “Huh? Pepper?! What’s going on?”  
He sank back into his pillow with a quiet “oh,” as Bruce chuckled quietly on his other side.   
“What was that for? I was sleeping!” He glared crossly at Steve.   
“No, you were. . .doing other things. In your sleep.” Steve said with a roll of his eyes, motioning towards the blanket.   
“Oh.” Tony’s answer was not very articulate as he suddenly saw, and felt, the source of Steve’s discomfort. Little Tony had come out to play.  
“Pleasant dreams?” Bruce teased.  
“Yeah, about you, handsome.” Tony shot back, fluttering his eyes at the other scientist.  
Steve snorted. “He was muttering about Pepper while grinding against my leg.”   
“Hey, weren’t you in the Army, Cap? You’re not allowed to be embarrassed about stuff like this.” Tony protested.  
“I’m not embarrassed. I’d just rather not have your sticky mess all over my leg, thank you very much.”  
Tony laughed and all three men found themselves glancing again at the tented blanket. This time, Steve’s cheeks did turn red as a hand could be seen moving back and forth over the sizable lump.   
“Tony!” Steve yelped.  
“Hey, I’ve got both hands above the covers.” Tony smiled like it was Christmas morning, waving his hands in the air as the ministrations continued.  
Steve couldn’t get out from under the covers fast enough.  
“I think that embarrassed him.” said Bruce smugly.   
“Hey, don’t stop!” Tony exclaimed.  
Steve groaned as he disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Unfortunately it didn’t shut out their conversation.   
“Only if you reciprocate. I’m not doing this for nothing.”   
“I thought you didn’t swing this way. What’s Tosh going to think?” Tony asked.  
“I don’t and she lives with Jack Harkness; I really don’t think she’ll care.” Bruce said as he moaned appreciatively.  
“Oh god, what is Pepper going to think? I promised her no more girls, does this count?”  
“No. I’m not a girl. It’s just a hand job between friends, Tony. Now shut up and move.”   
“Well, if that’s the case how about a bj?”  
“Tony…” Bruce’s protests turned into breathy moans.  
Steve put his toothbrush back into its holder and frowned at the bulge in his own pants. He’d woken up with it and the other clowns banter and moans were not helping it go away. With a sigh he stumbled into the shower, setting it to a warm spray. 

 

Thanks to Jarvis, the others in the Tower weren’t aware of the sometimes arrangement, though Natasha noticed that Steve and Tony were getting along much better. Clint agreed that he’d never seen such an amiable Tony. Maria was just glad they weren’t at each other’s throats. They shrugged it off and went about their business.   
Clint was the first to find out. He and Thor broke into Tony’s level on a chilly November morning. They’d been sparring and Clint wanted to break out the laser tag stuff, but Fury had locked it away and Maria refused to let him at it. Jarvis had politely told them that he was not authorized to override Fury’s mandate on that particular closet.   
“Tony’ll make him let us in. He’ll at least know of a way to override Fury’s command.” Clint assured Thor as they “quietly” tromped through Tony’s living room.   
“Aye. Fury has no right to keep the Man of Iron from his weapons, especially such harmless ones.” Thor replied.  
Clint began to agree with him as he pushed open Tony’s bedroom door, but his words died on his lips. The archer spluttered in amazement as three pairs of familiar eyes opened to greet him. Tony and Bruce were curled up around Steve, blinking sleepily at him while Steve turned red.  
“Is everything alright, Clint?” Steve asked, voice calm.  
“Uh…..” Clint could not remember why he was standing in Tony’s bedroom doorway. He beat a hasty retreat.   
Thor had no such compunctions and strode into the room.  
“Ah, good morning, Bruce, Steve, Tony. Fury has locked away the laser tag equipment and Jarvis said he cannot override the command. We thought you might be able to help us in our quest, Tony.”  
“Uh, yeah, I can do that.” Tony agreed. “Jarvis, code eyepatch on whichever storage closet the laser tag stuff is in.”   
“Thank you, friend. Enjoy the rest of your sleep.” Thor grinned at them before striding back out, softly shutting the door behind him.  
“Well shit.” Steve muttered.  
“Guess the cat’s out of the bag.” Bruce shrugged and snuggled closer to Steve’s warmth, pulling his blanket above dark sleep tousled hair.   
“Shut up so I can go back to sleep. It’s 6 am, too early for talking.” Tony said, mirroring Bruce’s movements. He was snoring again within moments.   
With a much abused sigh Steve closed his eyes. He was sure someone was going to make a big deal about it, but he really didn’t want to think about it. Besides, with his teammates snuggled up around him he’d been able to avoid the nightmares of cold and ice that the cooler temperatures had brought. 

In the rec room, Thor laid out some of the laser weapons for them to choose from while Clint looked on, enduring Natasha’s laughter.  
“Clint, don’t act so shocked.” She pulled her crimson robe a little tighter against the chill as she sipped a cup of dark coffee.   
“But, Steve? In bed with Bruce AND Tony?” Clint sputtered.   
“Oh, come on, it’s not like you haven’t ever gone to bed with any of your teammates on a dark, cold night.” She grinned at him around the rim of her cup, winking before slipping a laser knife into her robe on her way out. Having shared more than a few such nights with him, both carnally and just to keep bad dreams away, she knew he couldn’t retaliate.   
“Aye, it is nothing unusual for warriors to share a bed to keep the dark and cold at bay. I’ve done it myself. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and doesn’t always include sex.” Thor agreed with Natasha.   
Clint rolled his eyes and canned his protests when Thor handed him the laser bow.  
Later, when recalling the morning’s event’s to Jane, Darcy, and Loki over breakfast, Thor found himself regretting his words when Jane blinked up at him in surprise and Darcy grinned at him and demanded to know everyone he’d ever slept with. Loki had no sympathy and laughed outright at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little bit crazy time wise, so just slot it in wherever you like. Think of it as an interlude while the rest of the next chapter stops ignoring me and tells me what happens. 
> 
> Also, oops, it got slightly smutish. I don't actually ship them, this just kinda happened and I thought it was hilarious, so I wrote it. Hope you liked it.


	12. Tuesday Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get a sneek peak of the Torchwood crew's morning, Amy gets a surprise visitor at work, and Tony instigates a shoping trip.

“Jack, no.” Ianto dodged the ex-conman’s grabbing hands, not about to be pulled back into the soft grey sheets.  
He quickly tugged on a pair of plaid pajama pants and a robe before gathering up his clothes from the night before, pointedly ignoring the other man’s pleading sleepy eyes. He fled Jack’s cubby hole of a room for the showers, entering just as Tosh was finishing; her hair still full of conditioner. Living in such close quarters could be awkward at times. Though the facility had barracks style beds and a functional kitchen, it was not designed for coed live in use as the large, open walled shower was attached to the gym and there were only two bathrooms.  
“Terribly sorry, I can come back later.” Ianto stammered, quickly turning to leave.  
“It’s alright, Yanto, I don’t mind if you don’t. I’ll be done in just a minute.” she said, businesslike as usual.  
The entire team was aware of his odd relationship with Jack, and while Owen harangued him about it and Gwen seemed either indifferent or at times both bitterly jealous and judgmental, Tosh continued to treat him as she always had, with kind respect. He knew she was pining over Owen, who was all wrapped up in Gwen, but she did not want his, or anyone else’s, pity. He supposed that if he let his professional façade drop a bit, he and Tosh could become friends. However, Ianto decided to wait until they were both dressed for an such overtures, as he turned on a faucet just down the wall from where she stood, shivering as the cold water hit his shoulders.  
After his brisk shower he headed for the kitchen, just as Owen decided to emerge for the day. Ianto hid a smile as he heard the other man’s angry yell as Jack streaked through the hall towards his own warm shower. With practiced ease, he tuned up his coffee machine for the day.  
He frowned as he opened the fridge. There were only three eggs left in the carton, and someone had eaten the last of the pizza in the middle of the night. The more than half empty bottle of vodka next to the crumb filled box clued him in to the likely culprit. Thankfully, there were still a few bananas left in the fruit drawer, next to a half rotten tomato and a lonely peach. He pushed aside a carton of leftover fried rice to get to the orange juice, emptying the last of it into his glass. So the vodka hadn’t been drunk by itself then.  
Turning, he pursed his lips at the deplorable state of the kitchen, specifically the pile of dishes that had found their way into his usually pristine sink. Only he and Tosh actually cooked, but the others enjoyed making a mess out of the place. Normally they rarely stepped foot in this room, but since they were stuck here things had become problematic.  
“Good morning!” Jack breezed in, hair still damp, full of smiles now that he was fully awake.  
“Hello. Please throw the box away the next time you finish the pizza, sir.”  
“Anything you say, sugar.” Jack winked at him, causing Ianto to roll his eyes. He was sure he would find an empty box in the fridge the next time Jack finished with his late night snacking.  
“So, what’s for breakfast?” Jack asked.  
“Whatever you can find. I’ll have to do the shopping after work, I didn’t have time yesterday, and someone went through most of the eggs.”  
“You really need to quit your job, ‘Yanto.” Jack said sternly, “This place is going to fall apart without you here all the time to keep us straight.”  
“I don’t think that straight is quite the right word, sir.” Ianto replied with a wink.  
Jack laughed, the joyous sound filling the room and warming them both.  
“No, I don’t think it is.” Jack moved behind him, fingers caressing his hip, as Ianto scrambled his eggs at the stove. After being playfully nudged away Jack disappeared into the fridge, emerging a moment later with two bananas. He hopped up onto the table, and Ianto focused on not burning his eggs, with Jack lasciviously teasing the peel off the fruit.  
“You know, the Doctor’s last regeneration loved these. He claims to have invented the banana daiquiri. Speaking of, there was this lovely little thing at the bar last night, had the most beautiful yellow dress.”  
Ianto zoned Jack’s chatter out as he ate his eggs, sitting next to him, in a proper chair of course, while scribbling down a grocery list on his Stark phone, and making a note to ask Maria if the Avengers crew needed anything. Maybe they could do their shopping together.  
“So will you come?” Jack looked at him expectantly.  
“I’m sorry, come to what?”  
“The bar, they’re going to let me audition to sing tomorrow.” Jack had found a job at a high class night club that serviced quite a few government officials. The job suited him perfectly.  
“Of course, just let me know what time.”  
“Nine. And dress casually.” Jack winked at him before taking a lascivious bite out of his fruit.  
Their attention was diverted when Gwen skittered to a halt in the doorway, Owen crashing into her, her eyes opening wide in surprise at finding a naked Jack perched on the table.  
“Oi! We eat off of that!” She shrieked.  
“Kill me now!” Owen exclaimed before rushing out, hands over his eyes as Jack began a playful banter with Gwen.  
It was just as well since Ianto had to get to his job at the Bureau. In the two weeks he’d worked there, they’d already declared him to be the best secretary there. He’d also found no leads on Q, but he wasn’t about to stop looking.

…  
Steve stretched his arm loosely behind his back as he left the steamy warmth of the locker room shower, his lips curling up into a soft smile of contentment. Thanks to the gang busts of the day before he had the day off and planned to spend it in the peace and quiet of the Tower. His growling stomach sent him in the direction of communal kitchen.  
It was a short walk down the hall as the communal kitchen, game room, and gym were all on the same floor, along with the porch. Before they’d all been zapped into this alternate reality, the Tower had contained over thirty floors. Most of them were missing. He was thankful that each of the Avenger’s separate quarters had made it, as well as all of Tony’s labs and storage rooms. He wasn’t about to tell Stark, but he enjoyed his floor of the building, despite its extravagant waste of space. Pepper had undoubtedly had a hand in the design, and it felt almost homey compared to some of the more modern parts of the building. He mused over the missing floors as he placed bread and butter pickles onto his turkey and cheese sandwich before cutting another slice of tomato. The sound of a lighthearted argument drew him to the porch where Tony and Dean sat in the chairs Natasha had drug outside, beers in hand, holographic files spread out in front of them.  
“Come on. You look like a lumberjack on steroids. Plaid on plaid is just overkill.” Tony waved his hands emphatically  
“I bet you’ve never even seen a lumberjack before, Tony.” Dean rolled his eyes.  
“That’s beside the point. For the sake of my eyesight and sanity, you really need to buy new clothes, kid.” Tony looked up and saw Steve, motioning him over before waving a group of holographic files out of the air over the seat next to him.  
“Steve wears plaid all the time, and I don’t see you griping at him.” Dean said with a smirk.  
“That’s because he’s an old man.” Tony smiled triumphantly after stealing a potato chip off Steve’s plate.  
“Which just makes plaid a fashion classic.” Dean shot back.  
Steve’s protests were ignored.  
“No, it’s outdated. Speaking of, what’s up with that trench coat your boyfriend always wears? Does he ever wash it? He always wears the same suit too.”  
Steve moved his plate when Tony’s eyes shifted to his chips again.  
“Hey, leave the coat out of it. Cas loves that thing. And he mojo’s his clothes clean whenever they need it.”  
“His power’s a limited thing since we’re all here, right?” Steve chimed in.  
“I think so.” Dean shrugged, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips.  
“Well, as an energy expert, my official opinion is that he’s wasting his angel juice. Ready to go shopping?”  
“No, there’s nothing wrong with plaid. I told you, I’ll wear a suit when we meet the clients.”  
“Yeah, your ‘I’m with the FBI’ suit. Come on, it’ll be fun.” Tony wheedled. “Steve, tell the kid he needs a new wardrobe.”  
“I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s wearing.” Steve didn’t want to get into it; he just wanted to finish his sandwich in peace.  
“That’s because you need a makeover too. Call Cas, and let’s all go shopping.”  
“No, not happening.” Dean was beginning to look a little worried now, suddenly realizing that his wardrobe had become one of Tony’s latest “fun” projects. Unfortunately, Tony had his phone in hand, trying to get to Cas. When it went to voicemail Tony sighed dramatically.  
“He’s not very good with technology is he?”  
“He’s learning.” Dean said, becoming defensive.  
“Cas told me that angels have their own sort of radio frequency they tune into. To them, prayers are like phone calls.” Steve remarked, remembering his conversations with the angel on their church excursion.  
“Well, I haven’t prayed in ages, but here goes. Dear Cas, please come rescue Dean from his terrible choice in fabrics before the fashion police arrest him.” Tony joked.  
Steve stared when Castiel appeared in a light gust of wind, angel blade in hand. Blue eyes blinked in confusion when he saw they were in no danger.  
“Dean, what’s going on? Who are the fashion police, and why would they capture you?”  
“Hey Cas, it’s alright, Tony’s just being an idiot.” Dean looked vaguely embarrassed.  
“No, I’m insisting on taking him shopping, and he’s being an ass about it. So now we’re all going. Come on, I’ll even let you drive, Dean.”  
“Drive where?” a low, feminine voice chimed.  
The men looked up in surprise as Darcy stood in the glass doorway, bag of chips in her hands.  
“Who the hell are you, and how did you get into my Tower?” Stark asked, eying the bag of chips.  
“Tony.” Steve said, his voice warning him to calm down. He stood and pulled up another chair as the young woman bounced over.  
“I’m Darcy Lewis. And you’re Tony Stark, Dean Winchester, and Castiel, angel of the Lord.” She plopped into the offered chair, smiling up at Steve.  
“How does she know that?!” Tony exclaimed, looking to Steve for an answer.  
“She’s from your world.” Cas said quietly, his head cocked inquisitively as he studied her.  
“Got it in one, angel boy.” She grinned up at him.  
“Loki and Sherlock found her and Jane Foster yesterday. Jane’s staying with Thor, and Darcy is staying with us. I let her use my couch last night. I was going to ask, but you were locked in the lab, and Agent Hill cleared her.” Steve explained, coloring slightly when Tony’s head whipped around and his eyes narrowed.  
“He offered me the bed, but my legs are shorter so I insisted on taking the couch. It beats having to sleep on Thor’s couch when he and Jane are doing it in the other room.” She grimaced, holding the bag of chips out to Tony.  
He took one with a chuckle, as did Dean when she pushed the bag in his direction.  
“So, plaid.” Tony fired at her, settling back into his plastic deck chair.  
“Eh, in moderation unless you want to look like a lumberjack or a hipster. Though the Winchesters do wear it well.” She winked at Dean.  
“Ok, that proves it. Shopping. Now. Lost and found’s coming too.” Tony got to his feet and strode back in the door, sending a stern glance behind him to make sure the others followed. With sighs, confusion, and squees, they did. 

…  
“Yes, the brochure said three days in New Las Vegas. No, I’m sorry; I can’t change your ticket on such a short notice. If you fill out the form on our website we can refund you. I see. Have a nice day.” Amy hung the phone up with a tired sigh.  
She picked up one of the brochures that lay on her desk, looking wistfully at the picture of a starry night sky over the Grand Canyon. She didn’t look up when the high pitched chime that signaled an open front door rang throughout the small shop, refusing to be pulled out of her fantasy. A glare from her supervisor was enough to pull her out of the pleasant dream, and Amy swiveled her chair around to the sound of girlish giggles from her coworker, Jill.  
“Here she is!” Jill happily proclaimed, hand sweeping grandly towards the empty chair in front of her desk for the benefit of a tall thin man in a dark coat. With a wink at the bemused redhead, Jill reluctantly scampered away to watch them from her own travel brochure covered desk.  
“Well hello, Sherlock. What can I do for you?” Amy said, her smile finally genuine. She ignored the supervisors deepening frown.  
“Amy! Imagine my running into you here! How are you?” He proclaimed, putting on an act for the benefit of the watchful eyes. Amy played along, and the other women’s interest waned somewhat as Amy gave him the travel spiel on New Boston. He listened intently, asking questions about museums and the arts, information which Amy had to look up but found quite interesting.  
“Would you like a cuppa?” Sherlock asked abruptly, as Amy read off some information on boat tours.  
“Sure. But I’m working now, and I already had my break for the day.” She responded, not at all put off by his brusque manners.  
“Then quit. It looks rather dull, as I’d imagine you’ve been to your planets version of these sites or better already considering you live in a space and time machine.” He haughtily glanced at her supervisor, who had decided he was Amy’s lover come to flirt with her on the clock.  
“Yeah, but we’re supposed to have jobs.” Amy said, rolling her eyes at him.  
“Which is precisely why I want to speak with you. I have a much better offer. You strike me as the kind of woman who wants to experience the world, not the sort to sit behind a boring desk and sell travel brochures.” He leaned in, absolutely earnest.  
Without wavering, he met her intent brown stare. After a moment she frowned at him. The corner of his thin lips twitched up into a smile as he triumphantly leaned back.  
“Give me twenty five minutes, and I’ll meet you at the coffee shop next to the music store.” Amy groused. He knew her frown was an affectation.  
“Oh, and I will take the third travel packet to New Boston. Make it for the third weekend in September, a party of two.” Sherlock said in a louder voice. This made the shrewish woman in the background soften a little. Amy took down his banking information and he swept out the door to await her in the food court.

“They’ve told me I’m not allowed to investigate.” Sherlock announced over his steaming latte at Starbucks forty-five minutes later.  
Amy laughed. “You’re Sherlock Holmes, how are they going to stop you?”  
“As someone told me recently, ‘I do what I want’.”  
“Loki, I bet.” She quirked an eyebrow accusingly, but the action was bellied by her smile.  
Sherlock ignored the gentle dig.  
“One of the theaters is having auditions for Hamlet this evening. The actress who was going to be chosen to play Ophelia has just gone on vacation after her lover ran away with another woman. I’m sure you could get the part. I’m going to audition as well. I’ve already seen the competition, and they’re sure to pick me.”  
“Theater?” Amy’s brown eyes widened in surprise. Her mind raced with the possibilities as she calmly sipped her coffee. The stage definitely sounded better than her boring desk job.  
Sherlock misinterpreted her surprise. With a tired sigh he explained.  
“My skills are surprisingly suited to it. I observe people, I see how they act, and can easily mimic it. I can fill the nuances of a character, and assume a perfect costume. My memory is superb; memorizing a script will be no trouble at all. And the stage manager does, incidentally, have connections with the local gangs.”  
“So, if the audition is today, do you think we have time to head home so I can change?”  
“No, so I brought you some clothes. The Doctor thought it was a splendid idea and showed me the TARDIS wardrobe.” He pulled out a small black case that Amy hadn’t noticed before.  
“All right, I’m game. But I’m keeping the job until I get the part.”  
“If that’s what you want.” Sherlock shrugged, not at all concerned.  
“So, why the sudden interest in Boston? Who exactly are we investigating? You’ve already taken down the gangsters.” She asked with a conspiratal smile.  
He blinked at her sudden change in topic, eyes crinkling as a genuine, toothy smile spread across his face. She was a sharp one.  
“Amelia Pond. You do catch on quickly. Let’s just say there’s a patron of the arts I’d like to become better acquainted with.”  
“And you need a wingman? I think I can do Ophelia, but you’ll have to tell me everything about the case.”  
“I hope you like dinner parties.” Sherlock remarked, reaching into his coat pocket for a slightly wrinkled New Boston newspaper article detailing a grisly murder.

…  
Darcy threw her head back and laughed joyously at the wind whipping through her hair as they sped along the interstate. She definitely approved of the zippy blue sports car and Dean drove at its only acceptable speed: fast. Cas shifted uncomfortably next to her in the small backseat when a strand smacked him across the face and she grinned up at him apologetically, holding back a comment on his own wind tousled hair. Thankfully Steve seemed to be enjoying the ride just as much as she was. A smile stretched across his face and an arm hung over the door, fingers grasping at the wind, while his other stretched out across the seat back behind her. His foot was moving to the beat of the music. She wondered if it was unconscious, as Tony was the designated DJ and had directed Jarvis to play the Rolling Stones Greatest Hits.  
She was absolutely relieved that Loki had shown up in her back yard. Jane had been worried out of her mind. Not to mention that it sucked being pulled into a blank life with no money in a weird alternate reality. She’d finally gotten a job just two days before, as a waitress in a small diner. She wasn’t at all sure that it would be better than her last one pushing papers for Shield. This one she chose on her own at least. She had been thankful to learn that Fury was off on some super-secret mission. Agent Hill had only rolled her eyes and warned her that a stack of paperwork was imminent.  
Soon enough they arrived at the mall. The moment Dean parked, Cas blinked out of existence, causing Darcy to flail a little in the now abundant amount of room. Steve acted the part of the perfect gentleman and opened the door for her. She sent him a large smile and a thank you. Chivalry was nice. Tony was a bundle of carefully contained excitement, arguing with Dean about the merits of Cas’ trench coat.  
“No, I will not burn my coat.” Cas interjected.  
“But it’s huge on you. Besides, you’re an angel; rain shouldn’t be a problem for you.” Tony said, gesturing with his hands as they entered the busy building.  
“I like it.” Cas said with finality.  
Green eyes sparkled as Dean beamed at the placid angel. Tony huffed and rolled his eyes before leading the way into the building.  
Truth be told, Dean was not super excited about their trip to the mall. Shopping just wasn’t his thing. He wore plaid because it was easy and classic, it had no pretentions. The big mall with all of its fancy shops full of expensive stuff just wasn’t his thing.  
The car ride, however, had been awesome. And Cas seemed curious, which was just enough to keep him from completely ditching the craziness. Except for his little stint as Emmanuel, Dean had never seen Cas in anything but a frumpy suit and his trademark trench coat. Now the angel was staring quizzically at a pile of colorful silk ties in an insanely expensive store while Tony and Darcy argued with Steve over the validity of selling a tshirt for more than twenty dollars. Walking through Macy’s had been an eye opener for the Captain.  
“I don’t know which one is best.” Cas turned to him for help, brow furrowed in confusion.  
“Well, what color shirt are you going to wear with it?” Dean found himself asking while pulling the pink tie out of Cas’ hand and placing it back on the table.  
“I don’t know.” The furrow grew deeper.  
“What’s your favorite color?” Dean tried not to sigh.  
“Green.” The answer required no thought.  
“Ok. Let’s stick to white and black shirts though, don’t let Tony sucker you into anything else.”  
Dean helped Cas comb through the pile of ties, pulling out the ones with green. A paisley monstrosity was thrown back into the pile, as was the one with pink polka dots.  
“But Dean, colors don’t have genders.”  
“I don’t care, pink is girly. And polka dots are terrible. What are you, five?”  
After that, Cas avoided anything with pink. A compromise was struck when Cas found a tie striped emerald green and plum purple, and another that gradiated from black to dark green. Darcy came over to help root through the colorful pile, abandoning Tony’s quest to get Steve into a shirt that wasn’t plaid.  
“Oh, look! This one’s neat and matches the green and purple!” She help up a rich blue and gold striped tie with a grin. “It matches your eyes, Cas.”  
“Huh, it does.” Dean noted.  
Dean stepped forward to help when the angel fumbled hopelessly with untying his ratty black tie. He grumbled at the angel about being an ancient baby who needed to learn to dress himself, earning himself a light punch from Darcy. He refused, however, to let her takeover, and showed Cas how to properly tie the purple and green material. Dean found himself giving in under the girl’s critical eye when she insisted on putting him in the green and purple and Cas in the blue and gold. The angel was able to execute the knot flawlessly on his own the second time. Surprisingly, he didn’t mind Darcy’s bossiness because it was good natured and peppered with chatty pop culture references that made Cas tilt his head in confusion.  
After another hour in the ritzy suit shop, with Darcy’s help, both he and Cas ended up with two dark solid colored button downs and two ties each as well as black pants and jackets. Tony took care of it all up at the register with his flashy gold card, as Steve continued to protest the extravagance. Dean noted that he’d been suckered into a decent sized pile of shirts, none of which were plaid.  
“Alright, I think I saw a shop with AC/DC tshirts down the way a bit on our way in.” Darcy declared as she and Tony herded them back into the busyness of the mall.  
“Great!” Tony nodded, all but standing on his toes to find it around the crowd.  
“Now that’s some fashion I can agree with!” Dean chorused.  
Dean was much happier an hour later as Cas came out of the dressing room in an artfully distressed superman tshirt and a pair of light washed jeans. Dean was sporting a black tshirt with a gold Batman symbol on the front. They ended up getting both along with a few band tees. These all had to be explained to Cas and Steve, a task that the other three immensely enjoyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Finally finished it. Already working on the next, but it might take a bit too.
> 
> Also, how in the world do I make this stupid site do double spacing?!


	13. Wild Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get wild, and it's Wednesday.

Wild Wednesday:  
Wearily, Loki stomped through his front door, a dark scowl on his face and shoulders slumped. He’d had to walk one too many dogs that day at work, and one too many stupid Midgardians had asked him one too many inane questions. He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered to go to the shelter, or why he’d bothered to come home. Slipping away from the heroes would be easy enough. A tinkle of feminine laughter from Thor’s room made his scowl deepen as he worked his way to the kitchen. 

Without warning, his feet flew out from under him and the god of mischief found himself on his back with a thud. He groaned and closed his eyes, not bothering to get up. 

“Ooops. Are you ok?” Darcy looked down at him, eyes wide with concerned red lips turned down in a frown. 

Loki shook his head as water dripped from her hair and onto his face. He sat up and regarded her with a glare. The girl was dripping wet and clad in strings holding triangles of dark fabric that barely made her modest. She held a green apple in one hand and a barely opened can of beer in the other. 

“Why in Odin’s name are you dripping all over my floor?”

“Sorry, I was swimming and got hungry, but I couldn’t find my towel. Jane and Thor have been holed up since I got home an hour ago, so I thought I’d just come in. . .” Darcy’s verbal stream petered off as Loki’s expression turned darker, if that was even possible, at the mention of Thor and Jane. 

“Oh! Maybe you can help me, the pool floaty I want got put on the top shelf out by the pool, and I can’t reach it. I didn’t think it was safe to stand on the chair while I was wet, didn’t want to slip. I bet you could get it.”

“Seeing as I’ve already slipped.” Loki rolled his eyes as he pulled himself to his feet.

“Again, sorry. I’ll wipe the floor up. Hey, maybe you could go swimming with me!”

“No, and you’d better.” He wrinkled his nose as he looked down at her before turning on his heel, carefully, and moving towards his room.

“Hey! What about my pool floaty?!” Darcy called after him.   
He turned and fixed her with a blank stare. 

“Please….” The girl whined, eyes large and pleading, lips turned down into a pout. 

No one, much less a pathetic little girl, had voluntarily offered to spend time with him in a long, long time. Except for Thor. But Thor, the great, blundering buffoon, didn’t count. Despite his best efforts, Loki found his resolve cracking. He could at least get her toy down. She was rather short. And annoying. From what he gathered, she’d probably bug him until he got the thing for her anyways. 

“Fine.” he scowled, before making his way outside. 

It turned out that the big yellow inflatable duck really had been placed higher than she could reach, though by the looks of the puddle in front of the shelf, she’d tried her best anyways. She thanked him, her red lips turning up in a wide smile. Loki found himself feeling pleased until he noticed another float lying by the side of the pool. Three more of the plain colored circular floats were littered around the pool deck. He moved to the edge of the pool and picked one up, turning to address Darcy with a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Is this not a pool float?” he asked, holding the damp neon pink thing away from him.

“Um, yeah.” She replied, looking confused.

“Yet you wanted me to get you that one.” his lip curled in a derisive snarl.

“Well, yeah. If you hadn’t noticed, this one is much more awesome.” She put a hand on her scantily clad hip, ready to go toe to toe.

“It’s juvenile.” Loki made no effort to hide his scorn. 

“Hey!”

“Stupid midgardian.” 

The words hadn’t been in the air between them for three seconds before the god of mischief felt the world tip beneath him for a second time that day. When he broke the surface of the pool moments later, spluttering, Darcy was standing on the ledge in front of him, hands on her hips, anger written clearly across her face.

“I am not stupid!”

On an unthoughtout impulse, Loki threw a double behind her and gave her a small push. With a shriek of indignation she landed in the water, the garish yellow float landing nearby. 

“Hey!” She cried, outraged, flailing comically. 

Loki found himself laughing; an actual, honest laugh with no tinges of bitterness. After glaring at him for a minute, Darcy joined in before retrieving the floating duck. He bet he looked ridiculous with his dark baggy shirt and tight jeans stuck to his body, water streaming through his hair. Ridiculous, however, was not the adjective that floated through Darcy’s appreciative mind. 

“Is everything all right?” Jane asked from the door, the buttons on her oversized plaid top not quite matching up.

“We heard your scream, Lady Darcy.” Thor explained from behind the scientist, clad only in jeans. His frown melted into a sly smile as he took note of Darcy’s wet companion.

“I’m good!” Darcy replied, happy to know that if she had been in danger, at least her body would have been found in a short amount of time.  
Jane looked doubtful, eying Loki with obvious distrust.

“If I had wanted to cause her any harm, you wouldn’t have heard a scream.” Loki said.

This only caused Jane’s glare to deepen, as she shifted on her feet. On impulse, Darcy splashed a handful of water at Jane, causing her to retreat with an unappreciative squeal. Thor laughed and tossed the wet pair a grin before following a clearly worried Jane into the kitchen.   
With her target gone, Darcy turned her attention to Loki as she treaded water while floating in her inflatable yellow duck.

“You know, she has good reason to dislike you. You did a lot of damage in your whole ‘conquer the earth’ power play.” 

Loki shrugged, “I was only taking my rightful place as ruler.”

“Rightful according to whom? Just because you’re old as balls and from another planet doesn’t give you the right to bully us ‘stupid midgardians’ into subjugation.” Darcy said hotly. 

“Well, someone ought to try. Better me than the alternative.” Loki said shrugging away the memory of his dark fall into Thanos’ clutches. 

Unfortunately, Darcy interpreted his shrug as flippantly arrogant so she did the only logical thing and splashed him. The water caught him full in the face, and he coughed as some of the chlorine burned its way into his nose and down his throat. Darcy looked smug. With a devilish grin he retaliated in kind and splashed her back, causing her to shriek in laughter and declare war. 

Darcy was surprisingly good at pushing the walls of water at him. After a few minutes of splashing, Loki ducked under the water and swam down to the pool’s white bottom, causing her legs to kick frantically as she moved towards the pool ledge. To his surprise she did not get out, so he launched upwards, pushing a nice wave of water before him, in her direction. She was prepared for his attack with a pair of goggles and a squirt gun retrieved from the pool’s edge. He found himself laughing in astonishment. This midgardian girl responded in ways that were refreshingly unexpected. 

Loki startled himself by stopping her attack by freezing the stream of water. She yelped in surprise, but instead of reacting in fear, as he expected she would, she seemed to be indignant.

“Hey! That’s cold. No fair using your super powers!”

“I don’t remember you specifying that wasn’t allowed before you attacked me, midgardian.” he shot back before disappearing below the water again. 

She tried to swim away, laden down by her floaty, as he tickled her feet. It was a useless battle. Darcy would squirt and splash Loki every time he surfaced for air, but he was a fast swimmer, able to direct the water right back at her before diving back down where he could stay under longer than she thought possible. 

She was laughing at the look of surprise on his face after she’d managed to throw a floaty around his surfacing head when she felt the tug on her foot. Another, harder tug had her out of the floaty. Darcy was able to get in one good breath before she was pulled under by the god of mischief, dark hair swirling around her shoulders. He tugged her all the way to the deep bottom, grin on his face, before holding her there, hovering above her. Just as her lungs began to burn he let go, grabbing her by the shoulders and hauling her up again.

He laughed in delight as she spluttered and coughed.

“You ass!” she exclaimed when she could finally speak, smacking him upside the head, “That was mean!”

“Mean? I held you down there for barely any time at all.” He suddenly realized that she was sucking in large breaths of air and struggling to stay afloat.

“I can’t hold my breath as long as you, you freaky Asgardian.” She rolled her eyes as he tossed her one of the nearest floaties, his eyes narrowing in concern.

“My apologies, Lady Darcy. I hadn’t realized mortals were such weak creatures.”  
He laughed as Darcy howled in frustration, retreating to the other end of the pool for the bigger squirt guns. 

…  
“This is your idea of an internship project?” Sam’s eyebrow was dangerously close to his hairline as he gestured between Crowley and the huge mound of paperwork on his own cubicle’s tiny desk.

“You said you wanted to learn how a law firm works, moose. It’s all in the fine print. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than listen to you whine.”

Sam made a sour face but buckled down to work, sifting through the mountain of legal files for the ones that would make the case. It took him four hours and at least as many cups of coffee, but he did it. Sam compiled the small sheaf of documents that would win Crowley’s case and after making a copy and putting arrow shaped sticky notes in the appropriate places he shuffled down the hallway to put it on Crowley’s desk. 

“Here.” Sam declared as he slapped the files onto Crowley’s with a defiantly superior bitchface. 

“What took you so long?” Crowley grinned up at him. 

“What took me so long?! Crowley, I had to go through ten file boxes to find those six pages!” Sam said as he gestured angrily. 

The demon simply ignored him, quickly flipping through the file folder.

“Well, you found all the right pages, so I suppose you’re not an absolute idiot and I can start giving you real work now.” he finally said, putting it back down and grinning up at the taller man.

Sam just glared down at him before turning on his heel to storm out of the office. However, his path was blocked by the sudden appearance of Gabriel who had a scarily large grin and held a huge lollipop in one hand and a taffy stick in the other. The badge pinned to his polo shirt read, “Gabriel, Heavenly Sweets.” 

“Heya Sammy, Crowley.” the angel grinned. 

“Dammit, Gabriel, you’re going to blow my cover popping in here like that.” Crowley protested. 

“Lighten up, bro.” Gabriel said before reaching up and wrapping an arm around Sam’s shoulder. 

The hunter cringed away, annoyed. “What are you doing here, Gabriel?”

“Looking for you. Dean said you’d be in the library studying but to my great surprise you two are keeping secrets again. What’s got you teaming up with Crowley?” 

“So you didn’t tell Dean, then?” Crowley interjected with a sly grin.

“It’s for a school assignment, and it’s none of Dean’s business.” Sam sighed. 

“Fine with me.” Gabriel shrugged.

“Wait, so you don’t care that I’m working with Crowley?” Sam asked, surprised that Gabriel didn’t care.

“No, why would I be? I’ve known Crowley here for a long time, and I think you’ve got the brains to see around his little tricks. If he hands you a flaming sword you’d have the good sense not to use it. Well, then again, maybe you would.” Gabriel shrugged, biting into the obscenely colorful lollipop with a crunch. 

“Wait, what?” Sam looked between the two in confusion.

“Dammit, I knew I should have put those angel sigil’s up. This is what I get for not gutting you when I had the chance in the garden.” Crowley growled.

"So you two have known each other for a long time? How long?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, we go way back. Crowley here has always been the independent one, too sly for his own good. When Eden closed down and us angel’s divided he decided he’d be his own man, slithered off the map.”

“But he’s a demon. I’ve seen his bones, in Scotland.”

“Sam, for a smart kid, you can be really stupid.” Gabriel laughed, “Where do you think demons came from, originally? You’ve met Lucifer. Hell, you were supposed to be his vessel.” 

“So he’s a fallen angel?” Sam’s voice dripped incredulity. 

“I didn’t fall!” Crowley growled. “Now it’s about time you two idiots got out of my office.” 

“Fine, be touchy! See if I show up to offer you guys’ fresh chocolates again!” With a glare at Crowley and a wink at Sam, Gabriel was gone, leaving a small box of Heavenly Sweet’s chocolates in Sam’s hands. 

“What the hell?” Sam exclaimed.

“Get out!” Crowley fumed.

“Fine, fine. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Sam left with a mystified shake of his head, leaving the chocolates behind. 

…  
Gwen juggled her coffee in one hand and the cop car’s laptop in the other as she flipped through the “wanted” gallery. For his part, Steve kept his eyes on the road, continuing on in companionable silence. As the resident rookie, he’d been “stuck” with the “transfer” from Scotland Yard. So far they’d had an uneventful afternoon, about a dozen traffic tickets. 

“You really are the real thing.” Gwen’s words startled him out of his focus, and he straightened over the wheel, brow knitting in confusion.

“Excuse me?” 

“You’re Captain America, lost super soldier from World War two, the guy who saved the world multiple times and punched Hitler.”

“Nah, I’m just a regular kid from Brooklyn who did his best for his country. I actually grew up just a few blocks from here. Besides, I didn’t actually punch Hitler. The war would have ended a lot faster if I had.” 

“What was it like back then? Jack doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Well, I think my universe had it a little differently than yours, but it was good, exciting, despite all of the bad. There were so many possibilities. Right before I signed up I went to the World Fair, on a double date with my best friend. All of those possibilities, becoming a reality. Hydra was using all of that technology for its own ends, but others, like Tony’s dad to some extent, were using it to make the world a better place.”

Gwen frowned in concentration as she thought about what Steve said, trying to puzzle him out. She loved to understand and connect with people, but she was realizing that she may have drawn some hasty conclusions about Captain America based on the fact that he was such a hero. 

“So if there was so much going on, why did you sign up?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Don’t get me wrong, things weren’t perfect. The world wasn’t quite as fast paced, but there was a lot going on and a lot of it wasn’t good. I don’t like bullies. I wanted to help make a difference in the world, help stop the Nazi’s and Hydra. Someone had to stand up to them. I knew what it felt like to feel weak and powerless, to stand up to someone bigger and stronger, and I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.” 

“Steve, you really are a hero.”

“No ma’am, I’m just a man who wants to help others, the same as anyone who wears a uniform. I just happened to get a nice dose of super soldier serum to help me out.”

Gwen’s rebuttal was cut off as the squad car’s police radio suddenly burst into action.

“Attention all units in the eighth precinct, there is a masked, armed gunman on Francis and Smith. An officer is down, I repeat, officer down!”

“That’s just a few blocks from here!” Gwen exclaimed after glancing at the map on the computer screen.  
Steve, however, had already taken action, putting on the lights and the siren, pushing the gas petal down with grim determination. That cross street was very familiar to him. They reached it in a surprisingly short amount of time, only to find the road blocked by an upturned cruiser. Gwen didn’t wait for Steve to park before leaving their cruiser, her gun in her hands as she ran to join the last of the officers barreling into a dilapidated old apartment building. 

“Gwen, hang on!” Steve yelled, pulling out his own pistol as he rushed up to the steps of his old home. Turned out the building still didn’t have an elevator. He took the steps, two at a time, traveling up them at a rate that would have astounded his old asthmatic self. He pushed himself even harder when he heard shouts, both of civilians and cops, followed by shots. Those were followed by screams. 

Steve ran into the third open door on the eighth floor, right into a scene of chaos. One cop lay on the floor, dead, with his partner standing over him, checking his pulse in disbelief. A middle-aged Hispanic man was huddled in the corner, moaning, blood gushing out of a wound in his arm. Gwen rushed towards the man, chase abandoned, as she tried to help him, grabbing a moderately clean towel from off the front of the stove to help staunch his wounds. Steve quickly surveyed the situation, making sure there were no more civilians needing help before rushing to the window. The third cop had followed the masked gunman out of the window and had just landed onto the roof of the building next door, pistol in hand as the gunman jumped up onto the next rooftop, a cloth bundle tucked under a metal covered arm. The cop took the shot. The bundle screamed.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” Steve cried, leaping down to the next rooftop, “That’s a kid!”

The startled cop dropped his gun, horrified. Steve was halfway across the roof when the assailant dropped the child before diving across a large gap of space and into an open window in another building, tossing something small and round behind him.

Steve grabbed the young girl and dove behind the air conditioning unit on the roof, tucking her into his chest to protect her from the blast. Her sobs were drowned out by the loud boom of the grenade. Steve waited a moment before uncurling himself from around her, but there was no second blast. Keeping the crying child in his arms, Steve stood, weapon still in hand, as he looked around for any sign of the mysterious assailant. There was none. 

“Steve! Are you alright?” Gwen called to him from the window he’d recently jumped out of.

“Yeah. Just peachy.” He called back before muttering, “And they all think my universe is weird.”  
…  
Hours later, Steve was ready to curse out the inventor of red tape. He’d thought it was bad back in the day, it got worse. Gwen, on the other hand, seemed to be in her element, filling out the reports efficiently and competently handling the questioning, all without complaint. Not that he’d actually complained, mind you. He was just ready to be done with the constant rehash of the twenty minutes worth of event. Besides it occurring at his old apartment complex, something he managed to leave out of his report, something about the event was really bothering him and he just couldn’t put his finger on it. 

“Hey.” Gwen’s soft word pulled him out of his thoughts, and her hand on his shoulder made him ready to jump.

With effort he took a deep breath and kept to his seat, not pulling away from her touch. 

“Gwen.” 

“You ok?” She sat next to him, brows furrowed in concern.

“Yeah, yeah, just a little shook up is all.” He tried to smile. Her frown didn’t go away, so he guessed it wasn’t that great of a smile. 

“What you did was incredible, Steve.”

“I know, which is why I have to be careful how I word things in the report. I think this is the fourth one they’ve had me fill out.” 

“I’m sorry, I had to do a bunch of paper work too. I’m about to head out, do you want me to wait for you?” 

“Please, I’d rather have company. I’m almost done.”

“Well, I don’t know if you’d want to go, but Jack is singing at his club tonight. I was supposed to be there an hour ago, actually. You don’t have to come if that’s something that will make you uncomfortable.”

“What?” Steve cocked his head at her, confused.

“Well, it’s a bar, and one that’s pretty gay friendly.” Gwen glanced around, making sure no one else was in earshot before continuing in a whisper, “You’re Captain America, aren’t you supposed to be like, the gold standard in American Ideals, a model citizen and all?”  
Steve chuckled. 

“I was in the Army, you know. I’ve been to plenty of bars before, Gwen. Not all Americans are Puritans.”

“Oh, ok. Well, wanna come along?”

“Sure, let me finish this.”

With a finish line and reward in sight, the last of the paperwork was filled out with more ease. The serum ensured he wouldn’t get drunk, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try. 

The bar was everything he expected it to be and more: dimly lit, crowded, loud music, filled with laughter, the perfect place to forget his day. Gwen grabbed his hand as they entered and tugged him through the crowd. He was taken aback by the gesture, but she didn’t seem to notice as she zoomed in on a specific spot in the room. Sure enough, 

Owen and Tosh were there, sitting on opposite sides of the booth, Tosh awkwardly absorbed in her gin and tonic, Owen sipping his beer without a care. Ianto appeared at the table a minute later, a little red in the cheeks, fresh drink in hand. 

“Hey guys! Has Jack sung yet?” Gwen said, loudly over the music, as they arrived at the booth, dropping his hand and sliding in next to Owen. 

“No, but he’s about to.” Ianto replied. “Hello, Steve, here, have a seat.” 

Steve sat down on the chair he grabbed from the next table. 

“What’s your poison?” Owen asked, taking a swig of his drink. 

“Just a coke for me, thanks.” Steve replied, hoping no one would press the matter and feeling a little awkward. 

“Come on, now, this is a club, you’ve gotta have something harder than that. Beer, scotch, some girly drink, as long as it’s alcohol. I’ll buy your first round.” Owen prodded. 

“No, no, but thanks. I don’t do alcohol anymore.”

“Owen, leave him alone.” Gwen chided, eyes going wide at the thought of Captain America as a recovering alcoholic. “I’m sorry Steve, if I’d known about the alcohol I wouldn’t have brought you here.”

“That’s all right, seeing others drink doesn’t bother me.” Steve shrugged. 

“Really? I always thought it was once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic sort of thing.” Owen said, clearly skeptical. 

Owen was thumped on the shoulder by Gwen and scolded by both Ianto and Tosh, while Steve blushed furiously.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. I don’t have that kind of problem, really. It’s the serum. My metabolic rate breaks the stuff down before it can do any harm, or good.” Steve explained.

“Rough.” Owen shook his head in sympathy. 

Their conversation was diverted; much to Steve’s relief, when Jack took the stage, clad in something Steve found hilariously inappropriate, though that did seem to fit him, and singing something dramatic and upbeat. Steve didn’t recognize the tune, but was happy to cheer along with the rest of the crowd, pleased that his new friend’s show was a success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time between updates, but life. Also, I know exactly what happens in the next little chapter, so here's to writing it.


End file.
